Title: Jan Beran (Chamber Music, 2003-2006) Christopher Raphael (oboe) (Cat. No. 2049)
Label: Vienna Modern Masters
Distributors: CDeMusic (North America), Vienna Modern Masters (Austria)
Release Date: 2007
About the Composer and Performers:
Jan Beran is a Swiss mathematician who currently teaches in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Konstanz (Germany). Christopher Raphael is an Associate Professor in the School of Informatics at Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana) where his work focuses on music analytics and statistical modeling. These efforts coincide nicely with Christopher’s passion to design an electronic accompaniment system (more on this in a moment).
It was this digital element that lead me to Jan and Christopher’s work. While browsing the electronic music selections on Naxos Music Library, I came across Beran’s Santi, Piano Concerto No. 2 (electronic version) on the Col legno label. I found the work to be thoroughly modern, and somewhat similar to some cinema mood music I enjoy. Particularly, the music avoided regular rhythm and melody…but was still interesting (to me).
I liked it. I wanted to hear more of Beran, but this turned out to be hard to do. His work is not widely distributed. While I could find Santi at Classics Online or Amazon.com, I couldn’t find much else. To their credit, Amazon.com does carry his textbook Statistics in Musicology (2003) along with his 1993 disc, Cirri, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t understand the statistics and I was looking to see if he’d composed anything more recently.
Enter Christopher Raphael. Browsing the web, I stumbled across Christopher Raphael’s blog where he describes collaborating with Beran and providing oboe solos (shout out to Patty!). Christopher has designed a digital accompaniment system that allows a soloist to actually direct digital accompaniment. Christopher describes his Music Plus One software better than I can. Here’s the page dedicated to Music++ and a download link. I can’t pretend to understand how this works, but the concept caught my interest, especially as Christopher credits it with enabling his performance of Jan’s more complex pieces.
Christopher’s description of his collaboration with Jan included MP3 samples. I liked the piano/oboe combination and determined to find out where I could get Mist Covered Mountains and Winter, the two pieces he demonstrated. I discovered these works were available on a disc titled Jan Beran: Chamber Music 2003-2006, Christopher Raphael, oboe on the Vienna Modern Masters label. This seemed well suited to my interests and I wanted to hear it in full CD-quality on my headphones. With help from David Osenberg, I was finally able to locate and obtain the disc. Thank you, David!
About the Music:
One of the reasons Andrew and I started the Sound Samples series was to get around the difficulty of describing music in English. If I wrote about a B-major scale in adagio, few people would really “hear” that in their mind (much less understand such technical jargon). Jan Beran’s music is both a perfect example of the dilemma of description and the value of hearing short clips (17 USC 107 “Fair Use” abiding clips).
The opening of Painted Lady (MP3, 31 seconds) reveals Beran the minimalist – reminiscent of his Santi disc.
This excerpt from Camberwell Beauty (MP3, 13 seconds) demonstrates Beran’s love for piano virtuosity.
A third clip, this time from Capriccio (MP3, 18 seconds) samples Beran’s ability to marry his modern style with melody.
In Mist Covered Mountains 1st Movement (MP3, 17 seconds), Beran combines his melodic skill with Christopher Raphael’s oboe – a thoroughly pleasing juxtaposition.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this disc and can recommend it to anyone interested in modern piano/oboe composition
Chris Raphael was, for a time, a sub around here. I do believe he even subbed in San Jose Symphony (RIP) quite some time ago. I am sorry to say I barely remember him … just remember his name! I think he also played in the Santa Cruz Symphony. Funny how small our world is.
A little PS: Chris’s brother has a reed ratings site (http://reedreviews.net/) I “met” him — only from a distance, as I was in the opera pit and he was in the audience — a few years back. At the time I didn’t know he was Chris’s brother … I only read that recently at his site.
I just listened to the clips. Interesting. (At first I thought the oboe was synthesized, which was a bit odd. I wonder what that was about?!)
Hey Patty,
I was hoping you’d spot this post
The piano is a Yamaha digital…and I’d guess that the oboe is a Midi-flute EXCEPT that the pictures on Chris’ site of the recording session show him playing the real thing.
Maybe its my 128Kbps rip of the track?
V