Adler Plays Syncopated Rhythms

James Adler - Adler Plays Syncopated Rhythms

Adler Plays Syncopated Rhythms

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CD Details

Artist: James Adler
Composer: James Adler
Conductor: James Adler
Performer: James Adler
Composer: Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Composer: Leo Ornstein
Composer: George Gershwin
Composer: George Antheil
Composer: Aaron Copland
Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Single
CD Release Date: 2008-04-22
Music Label: Albany Records
Soundtracks:

Pasquinade - Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Three Moments from Treemonisha - Scott Joplin
Selections from Nine Miniatures - Scott Joplin
Little Shimmy - Scott Joplin
The Ben Hecht Valses - Leo Ornstein
Ricercare and Toccata - Leo Ornstein
Prelude and Toccata - Leo Ornstein
Toccata No. 2 - George Antheil
Selections from Rodeo - George Antheil
Two Dances in One - Gian Carlo Menotti
Rhapsody in Blue - Gian Carlo Menotti

Music reviews of Adler Plays Syncopated Rhythms

Music Review: A Fascinating Program of American Piano Music
Rating: 4 Stars

The program on this CD is what attracted me to it. It contains some rarely heard works by such composers as Ornstein, Antheil and Menotti as well as by the CD's pianist, James Adler. The main idea of the program is to present American piano music that partakes to some (or a large) degree of American popular music. Thus, it starts with Gottschalk and Joplin followed by such things as a delicious threesome by Leo Ornstein -- his Mazurka, Humoresque and Valse -- and moving on to what for me is the highlight of the disc, the pieces by George Antheil, the soi-disant 'Bad Boy of Music'. These pieces, unlike some of Antheil's outré works, are harmless enough but brimming with such charm that I found myself listening to them repeatedly. 'Little Shimmy' is a delight. It is followed by 'The Ben Hecht Valses', written as a gift for the journalist/filmmaker Ben Hecht ('Front Page') who had hired Antheil to write music for his films. Later on the CD is Antheil's bustling 'Toccata No. 2' which parodies 'Bringing in the Sheaves'.

The paired pieces by Menotti -- 'Ricercare' and 'Toccata' -- are a bit more academic that one expects from Menotti, but they brim with life and that inexplicable Menottian charm. Aaron Copland apparently made solo piano transcriptions of 'Saturday Night Waltz' and 'Hoe-Down' from his ballet 'Rodeo'; I had never heard them before. They are, frankly, only modestly effective in Adler's performances, possibly more a function of the transcriptions than of the performances, although it must be said that Adler's skills at the piano are competent but not as transcendent one might like. Adler himself composed 'Prelude', 'Toccata' and 'Two Dances in One' which are fun pieces.

The CD concludes with the one-piano arrangement of Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' which Adler modifies by including the original's cadenzas.

This CD is a find for those who are fascinated by obscure byways of American piano music; much heard here is not, as far as I know, available elsewhere.

Scott Morrison

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Description of Adler Plays Syncopated Rhythms

Pianist and composer James Adler made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 16, the start of a varied career in the United States and Europe. He has appeared throughout the world at leading concert venues, including New York City s Alice Tully and Carnegie Halls. He made his London debut at the famed Wigmore Hall. Known as a pianist who can create whatever type of music he wants at the keyboard (Chicago Sun-Times), he has had particular success with his account of Gershwin s Rhapsody in Blue, the final work on this disc. His succinct description of the whole program perfectly sums it up: I wanted to prepare a CD program that is fun. Has rhythm. That is danceable. That is a little jazzy with depth and lyricism, and celebrates American traditions in music. Though not necessarily in chronological order.

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