Other Minds announces
The First CD of the Music of Ezra Pound: EGO SCRIPTOR CANTILENAE
Dear Member of the Ezra Pound List:
Greetings from San Francisco. I want you to know about a remarkable
new CD featuring our favorite composer.
I invite you to add to your already massive collection of Poundiana a
definitive compilation of the music of Ezra Pound. You may hear
recorded excerpts now at
http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/Poundcd.shtml. The recording lists
at $25.00 but is being offered now on the Other Minds web site for a
limited time at the introductory rate of $20 plus shipping and
handling. It's available via secure Internet ordering or by phoning
or faxing us in San Francisco. (See bottom.) This CD been three years
in the making and we're excited to announce that we now have copies
in stock to provide to you. A New York Times feature review by
Richard Taruskin is forthcoming. Be sure to get yours before it's
publicized so we don't run out. This is a limited edition product.
This deluxe package, containing one audio CD and an 80-page booklet
with previously unpublished photos and an essay by Margaret Fisher,
is the result of a 45-year-long labor of composer, conductor,
bassoonist and musicologist Robert Hughes of Berkeley, CA. After
meeting Pound in 1958 at St. Elisabeths and playing music for him,
Hughes embarked on a lifelong search for the musical works of the
poet that had been dispersed in various locations. His research and
editing of the operas and chamber music and his guidance in compiling
this remarkable collection has been central to our ability to hear
and assess Pound's beautiful and unjustly neglected music.
Between 1920 and 1933, Pound, known for his revelatory work
concerning the music of language, turned as well to the language of
music. Composing two complete operas and several pieces for solo
violin, all in a very personal language which drew from sources as
diverse as troubadour music and Igor Stravinsky, Pound set texts by
Guido Cavalcanti and François Villon which he felt resisted
translation, in order to share his appreciation of these poets with
his contemporaries. The result is a body of music, still unknown to
many, which is of surpassing beauty and casts new light on the
practice of prosody, the elusive craft of setting texts to music. In
addition, Margaret Fisher has unearthed a previously unknown song
from an unfinished opera: Collis O Heliconii (Catullus) and recorded
here for the first time. The recording of Cavalcanti also is a world
premiere recording.
Other Minds has gathered historical recordings from performances
around the world made over three decades (1971-2001) to create this
richly sonorous compilation of heartfelt, affecting performances.
Conductor and Pound music scholar Robert Hughes conducts The Other
Minds Ensemble and others. Reinbert de Leeuw, the outstanding Dutch
conductor, leads a performance with tenor Harry van der Kamp,
otherwise known as one of the world's leading singers of early music,
from the 1980 Holland Festival; other recordings from England and
Italy round out this brilliant collection. An 80-page booklet with an
essay by Pound music expert Margaret Fisher and previously
unpublished photographs make this deluxe package a must for those
interested in 20th century music, and in operatic and literary
history.
The project was funded with grants from Jennifer Wilson, The Thendara
Foundation and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, along with the
supporters of Other Minds, a non-profit organization devoted to the
work of maverick composers of non-commercial music.
(Incidentally, you might wish to view items of related interest on
the composer George Antheil also on our site:
http://www.otherminds.org/html/Antheil.html. And for a two-CD
compilation of Antheil's music plus recordings of his voice, see
http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/OMcds.shtml.)
I hope to hear from some of you!
-Charles Amirkhanian, Executive Producer
Order directly from the OM Website at http://www.otherminds.org or by
phoning (415) 934-8134 (10am-5pm Pacific Daylight Time).
EGO SCRIPTOR CANTILENAE: THE MUSIC OF EZRA POUND
Other Minds OM 1005-2
Price: $20 plus shipping and handling.
Inquiries: Charles Amirkhanian or Lisa Petrie (415) 934-8134
Charles Amirkhanian, Executive & Artistic Director
Other Minds, Inc.
333 Valencia Street #303
San Francisco, CA 94103-3552 U.S.A.
FAX (415) 934-8136
http://www.otherminds.org
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Other Minds 9 Festival of new music
March 5-8, 2003
Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, SF
http://www.otherminds.org
Featuring Composers:
Ned Rorem, Evelyn Glennie, Amy X Neuburg,
Ge Gan-ru, Daniel Lentz, Jack Body, William
Parker, Stephan Micus and Stephen Scott
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