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	Murray McLachlan Ronald Stevenson: Passacaglia on D.S.C.H. Genres: New Age, Classical This is a very important release for lovers of 20th century music, featuring one of the most fascinating and important piano works of the 20th century. Passacaglia is, first, one of the longest continuous solo keyboard pie... more » « less
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CD Details

All Artists: Murray McLachlan
Title: Ronald Stevenson: Passacaglia on D.S.C.H.
Members Wishing: 1
Total Copies: 0
Label: Divine Art
Release Date: 9/28/2004
Album Type: Single
Genres: New Age, Classical
Styles: Instrumental, Chamber Music, Forms & Genres, Variations, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830)
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 809730501326

Synopsis

Product Description

This is a very important release for lovers of 20th century music, featuring one of the most fascinating and important piano works of the 20th century. Passacaglia is, first, one of the longest continuous solo keyboard pieces ever written. It has collected almost a cult following. It is also a piece of wide variety, collecting in influences from the music of many places, but based strongly and closely throughout on the initials DSCH (for Dmitri Schostakovich)

CD Reviews

Ronald Stevenson's Passacaglia on D.S.C.H.

Alscribji | Washington, D.C. | 05/25/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To those who are familiar with the likes of Sorabji, Busoni, and John Ogdon, are probably familiar with Ronald Stevenson (b. 1928), the Scotch composer-pianist who writes in a neo-Romantic vein. His Passacaglia is an 80 minute tour de force of huge proportions, dedicated to Dimitri Shostakovich--hence, the four notes are the initials of D. Shostakovich in German, DSCH, that is, the keys of D, E flat, C, and B on the piano. The music is brooding, thick, virtuosic, and good. A constantly repeated theme, D, E flat, C, B, C, E flat, D, is sorrounded by variations that are constantly changing and growing. The piece is in three parts wherein the theme is heard througout in various guises and colors. If one is interested in little known gargantuan piano works such as Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum or Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated, then Stevenson's Passacaglia will not disappoint. The pianist on this CD, Murray McLachlan, does an excellent job in performing this massive work that has been hailed as a masterpiece in piano literature of the second half of the 20th century. Large one movement pieces can be traced back to Liszt's Bm sonata. Stevenson takes the idiom to a higher degree, and within a musical world that favored atonality, Stevenson's Passacaglia remains tonal, imaginative, interesting, and pianistically and compositionally adventurous. I highly recommend this CD to pianophiles who are always looking for something new and fresh in the "little heard but good" repertoire."