a r t i s t : Daniel Lentz
t i t l e : Los Tigres de Marte
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : Cold Blue Music
g e n r e : Classical
r l s. d a t e : Sep/2007
t r a c k s : 01
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 17,5 MB
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Frequently shifting focus as its harmonies melt one into
another, this swirling piece finds its wildly branching roots
touching on many styles of musicùfrom Delius and Debussy to
bop to techno. Los Tigres de Marte is sometimes lush and
enveloping, sometimes brittle and percussive, sometimes
suspended and motionless, sometimes agitated and aggressive,
but always engaging.
The composer writes about it:
"Like many American composers of my generation, I was raised
on a diet of bebop and serial music. In college in the 1960s,
my music reflected these influences and teachingsùfrom Miles
Davis to Stockhausen. I abandoned all this in 1970/71 when I
made my first pieces in my then-new styleùone of clear, tonal
harmonies and æprettyÆ melodies. In Los Tigres de Marte, I
tried to place my recent (still harmonically based) language
inside of one that resembles that of my student days: tight
clusters, glissandi, and even some bebop-driven rhythms." ùDL
The recording features the playing of long-time Cold Blue
clarinetist/collaborator Marty Walker, for whom the piece was
written in 2003, and a quartet of some of Los AngelesÆ top
studio string players, all bathed in lively, glowing textures
of electronic sounds and samples.
Daniel LentzÆs works have been commissioned and performed by
noted ensembles and soloists around the world, including the
Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New
Music Group, Zeitgeist, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. A
prolific composer whose works are often characterized by
intricate musical processes, a bit of theater, and an interest
in the human voice, Lentz has written large- and small-scale
works for most common instrumental combinations, many unique
ones, and the many ensembles (usually consisting of multiple
keyboards, singers, and electronics) with which he has toured
his music throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan since the
early 1970s. Lentz has been the recipient of many awards and
grants, including five grants from the National Endowment for
the Arts. Video presentations of his work have been seen on
Alive From Off Center (PBS), the Preview Pavilion at Expo 86
in Vancouver, BC, NHK-TV in Japan, NOS-TV in Holland, BBC-TV
in England, West German Television, Czech Television, and many
local television stations in the U.S. and abroad. Recordings
of his music have been released on the New Albion, Angel/EMI,
Cold Blue, Fontec, Aoede, Les Disques du Crepuscule,
Gyroscope/Caroline, Icon, Materiali Sonori, and ABC labels.
Commenting on LentzÆs music, noted composer/performer Harold
Budd has said, "I have heard the music for the new millennium,
and it's Daniel Lentz's." The Los Angeles Reader has written
that "Lentz's work 'chortles' in ways both sensual and
intellectual." Lentz
Marty Walker is a clarinetist who specializes in the
performance of new music. (He has premiered more than 90 works
written especially for him.) Among the labels for which he has
recorded are Cold Blue, CRI, O.O.Discs, Tzadik, Grenadilla,
Echograph, New World, and Rastacan. Walker tours and records
with various new-music ensembles, including the California
E.A.R. Unit (the in-residence ensemble at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art), Some Over History, eXindigo, Viklarbo,
and Ghost Duo. As a soloist, he has presented live radio
concerts on NPR, Pacifica, and other radio venues and has
performed at numerous new music festivals, including New Music
America (Miami and Houston), the International Festival of New
Music (Los Angeles), and New Music International (Mexico
City), and various new music venues, including Real Art Ways,
FaultLines, the Monday Evening Concerts, Knitting Factory
West, Podewil, and Wires. The Los Angeles Times has called
WalkerÆs playing "masterfully expressive;" El Nacional (Mexico
City) has said that his playing "took the audience to another
musical dimension;" and Option magazine called him "one of the
finest new-music clarinetists in the country." In 2002, Cold
Blue released Walker's CD Adams/Cox/Fink/Fox, about which
Fanfare magazine wrote, "The performances are about as ego-
free as one can find, and they seem indivisible from the
compositions themselves." In 2001, Cold Blue released his CD
Dancing on Water (Walker on clarinet/bass clarinet, with
additional noted new music players William Winant, Amy Knoles,
and Wadada Leo Smith, performing works by Lentz, Fink,
Garland, Byron, Fox, and Cox), about which 21st-Century Music
magazine wrote: "both the playing and the recording quality
are sparkling." Walker also appears on Cold Blue CB0001 (Last
Things/Fox), CB0004 (I Hear It in the Rain/Fink), and CB0010,
The Light That Fills the World/Adams) Walker
Brad Ellis (keyboards) is a pianist, electronic keyboardist,
sound designer/programmer, composer, conductor, and arranger
who first began performing LentzÆs music in 1983, while still
a piano student of Johanna Harris and a composition student of
Henri Lazarof. Ellis has performed on five recordings of
LentzÆs music and was the featured performer in LentzÆs
keyboard concerto, An American in Los Angeles, premiered by
the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1989. As a performer, keyboard
programmer, conductor, and arranger, he has worked on many
film and television projects with composers Jack Nitzsche,
Michael Hoenig, J. Peter Robinson, Joseph Vitarelli, Snuffy
Walden, Paul Buckmaster, Don Preston, and others.
Peter Kent (violin) is concertmaster of several orchestras and
chamber groups in the Los Angeles area, including the L.A.
Mozart Orchestra and innumerable session orchestras. He has
performed at the Carmel Bach, Ojai, San Luis Obispo Mozart,
and Abbey Bach festivals, and at other noted chamber series
and festivals throughout the U.S. and Canada. He toured for
several seasons on Columbia Artists CAMI Recital Series with
harpist Amy Shulman in the violin and harp ensemble 51
Strings. He is very active as both a concert performer and a
studio musician for film and television scores (having
performed on hundreds of scores) and with popular artists,
having recorded with Shirley Horn, Gerald Albright, Mariah
Carey, Fiona Apple, Michael Feinstein, and many others. Kent
is featured on several albums of the music of composer Sasha
Matson on the Audioquest and New Albion labels.
Robin Lorentz (violin) has been a featured violinist on tour
with composers Terry Riley and John Luther Adams and a member
of the noted new music ensemble California E.A.R. Unit since
1984. She is a featured performer in the Santa Fe Pro Musica
and has served as concertmaster on the L.A. Philharmonic's
Green Umbrella series and at the Ojai Festival. She gave the
world premiere of John Adams' Road Movies at the Kennedy
Center and the premiere of Virko Baley's Kolimayaka, a Dance
for solo violin at Carnegie Hall. An accomplished arranger and
composer as well as a versatile instrumentalist, Robin's solo
violin playing has been featured in such motion pictures as
Other People's Money and Back To The Future III and the
television series Northern Exposure. She has recorded for New
Albion, Cold Blue, New World, O.O.Discs, Sony, MCA, Columbia,
Echograph, and Glenfinnian Records. Ms. Lorentz co-wrote with
composer Eve Beglarian and performed a series of Stephen King
audio books for Penguin Publishing. She has served on the
faculty at the California Institute of the Arts. Lorentz
Maria Newman (viola), a violinist/violist/composer, is the
youngest daughter of famed film composer Alfred Newman. She
received her formal training at the Eastman School of Music
and Yale University. A champion of the music of Miklos Rozsa,
she made the world premiere recording of his Viola Concerto
with the Nuremberg Symphony and gave the American premiere of
his 1928 Violin Concerto. Newman is a founding member of the
award-winning Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble, and she has recorded
for the Varese Sarabande, Audioquest, Bay Cities, Colosseum,
Celestial Harmonies, and Raptoria Caam labels. She is a much-
in-demand violinist/violist in Los Angeles studios, where she
has performed on innumerable film and TV scores. As a prolific
concert composer, she has received many commissions and
awards, including five consecutive annual ASCAP Awards and two
Composers Guild Awards.
Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick (cello) is an active soloist, chamber
musician, and specialist in contemporary music. She has
performed world and local premieres of solo and chamber works
throughout the United States and Europe, including the L.A.
Olympic Festival, the Computer Music Festival in Zurich, the
Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, the Santa Fe Chamber Music
Festival, and the San Francisco Symphony "New and Unusual
Music" series. She recently recorded Elliott Carter's
Enchanted Preludes, a work written for her and flutist Dorothy
Stone. She has toured with Joan LaBarbara and Morton Subotnick
since 1981, and JacobÆs Room (on Wergo Records) marks her
fourth appearance in recordings of Subotnick's music. Among
the many other composers whoÆve written works for her are Mel
Powell, Alvin Lucier, and Michael Jon Fink. She is a founding
member of the California E.A.R. Unit, a Los Angeles-based new
music ensemble, with which she tours throughout the United
States and Europe. She has also given master classes and
recitals under the auspices of the U.S.I.A. "Arts America"
Program in Central and South America. Ms. Kirkpatrick has
recorded for the Nonesuch, Wergo, New Albion, Voyager, and
Cold Blue labels. Duke-Kirkpatrick
Reviewing CB0016
"With its slow, interlocking suspensions and white-note
harmonies, Tigres brings to mind Sibelius, of all thingsù
particularly the twilight pages of the Sixth and Seventh
symphoniesùwith the exception of a contrasting section about
six minutes in where the rhythmic intensity gets cranked up
and the piece breaks into a manic Michael Nymanesque
jitterbug. . . . But the jitterbug ends just a quickly as it
began, ceding to a much more lyrical style that gives a
prominent, concerto-like roll to the clarinet. If Lentz talked
about some of his earlier cascading echo pieces as æspiralling
forms of becoming,Æ Tigres tracesùwith its expressive grand
pausesùa more improvisational line of fragmentation. . . . By
intriguing his listeners at the same time he wreathes them in
smiles, Lentz always comes up with something listenable and
worthwhile. ThatÆs certainly true of this new release." ù
Arved Ashby, Gramophone
"Daniel Lentz offers the most sonically dense music of the
four discs. Clarinet, violin, viola and cello, combine forces
with all manner of electronic keyboard sound, including quite
a bit of harp and brass, to convey music of near orchestral
force and scope." ùMolly Sheridan, NewMusicBox (American Music
Center)
"It is a precious suite which fluctuates between melodic
classical music and new instrumental music. There also are
some touches of minimalism . . . ùAmazing Sounds (Spain)
"After pressing the æPlayÆ button, one is immediately immersed
in a beautiful landscapeùperhaps itÆs spring, perhaps itÆs the
dawn û although it seems likely that the landscape is on Mars,
not on Earth. The æLever du jourÆ from RavelÆs Daphnis et
ChloΘ might have been LentzÆs model. In time, Marty WalkerÆs
clarinet emerges from the softly swirling mass of sound. And
thenùsurprise!ùthe tempo picks up, and one finds oneself in
the middle of a Martian bacchanale. This doesnÆt last long
however, and Los Tigres de Marte wends its way to an end with
the clarinet singing a rapturous solo over a warm backdrop of
strings and electronicsà" ùRaymond Tuttle, ClassicalNet
"Daniel LentzÆs work, with its sparkle and pulse, has long
evinced hallmarks of the minimalist style. But Lentz has often
brought a glossy, Pop Art-Southern California palette of
colors to his work. Los Tigres de Marte is in many ways a
brief clarinet concerto for the tonal virtuosity of Marty
Walker . . . With its unashamed melodic richness unfolding
within an alternation of passages both sun-streaked and
shadowed, Los Tigres de Marte is an engaging and powerful work
that seems to reveal new facets with each encounter." ù Kevin
Macneil Brown, Dusted
"Suffused with memories that seem to include Smetana and
Delius, the piece is a fabric of rich harmonies and textures,
passed under the ædistortingÆ lens of contemporary musical
sensibility." ùChristopher Ballantine, IntÆl Record Review
(UK)
"Los Tigres de Martre mutates dizzyingly through multiple keys
and stylistic episodes: Debussyesque one moment, Glass-like
another, with aggressively stormy moments offset by harp-
flavoured interludes of delicate languor. ItÆs a concerto of
sorts for Marty Walker with his clarinet enveloped by
glissandi strings and electronic choirs, bells and assorted
other percussion." ùRon Schepper, Textura and Stylus
"Los Tigres de Marte is indeed a powerful, exhilarating and
bright composition, which tends to ravish rather than lull
you. Lentz himself talks of ætight clusters, glissandi, and
even some bebop-driven rhythms.Æ Quite a beautiful work ..."
ùEugenio Maggi, ChainD.L.K. (Italy)
"Beautifully recorded music with suitably artistic packaging .
. . Los Tigres de Marte is more melodic and complex, with
elements that seem to draw from Philip Glass, Gershwin and
Zappa. . . . this is definitely music worth spending time
with." ùRandy Raine-Reusch, MusicWorks
"Daniel Lentz forever has my vote as the greatest 'new music'
composer. . . . Los Tigres is a truly unforced and uplifting
achievement! Something whose fresh, invigorating impulse could
repeat over and over only to be experienced anew each listen .
. . an unequivocally recommended miniature." ùExposΘ
"The orchestral temperament of this music is soothing and
congenial, with strings waxing cerebral in conjunction with
atmospheric electronics. After a while, the music takes a more
lively turn, exploring fanciful melodies that maintain an
airy-but-insistent bearing. Piano emerges to guide the tune
into its concert hall finale. The clarinet achieves a high-
altitude winsome manner that is excellently elaborated by the
airy strings, producing music that spills from a mountain peak
to entertain all surrounding valleys." ùSonic Curiosity
"This is a particularly enjoyable work that demonstrates
special attention to the act of composition." ùaltriSuoni
(Italy)
"A capricious, Disney-esque fantasia, beconing to be opened
endlesslyà.featuring puzzling but well-resolved contradictions
à Bursts of energetic keyboard exuberance evolve constantly
into masses of glissandi, juxtaposing fragments of melody with
brittle lateral immobility. Lentz's music proves to be quite
labyrinthine and filled with a vigorous sensuality." ùei
magazine
"Surfacing only infrequently on disc since the heyday of
minimalism in the 1980s, Daniel Lentz contributed this lush,
beautiful, mostly electronic tone poem to Cold Blue Music's
enterprising CD-single series in 2004. Opening with a sheen of
pitch-drifting electronic sound, the 15-minute piece soon
becomes an elegy for Marty Walker's sometimes-arpeggiated
clarinet and a mixture of acoustic and electronic strings,
simulated chimes, and other digitally-created sounds. Except
for a minute-long outburst of Lentz's more typical motor
rhythms mid-way through the piece, all is peaceful and highly
romantic in mood and texture, with only a hint of unease in
the harmonies. Though perhaps intended as ambient music,
Lentz's piece offers more for the attentive listener than most
in this genre." ù Richard S. Ginell, All-Music Guide
(http://www.coldbluemusic.com/pages/CB0016.html)
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01-Los Tigres de Marte [15:03]
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15:03 min