This is the world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, At the round earths imagin'd corners, for baritone and piano, after the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, commissioned for and premiered as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and pianist Alisdair Hogarth - Holywell Music Room, Oxford, England... 7:45pm 27 October 2023.

This is the studio recording of Geoffrey Gordon's Vermilion for tenor trombone and piano, after the painting by Matisse, featuring trombone soloist Håkan Björkman (Principal trombone, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Europe) and pianist Pilar Beltran.

Recorded 11 September, Royal College of Music,

Stockholm, Sweden - Sound engineer: Jan-Olof Gullö, RCM.

PROGRAM NOTE:

"I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish" said renowned French artist, Henri Matisse (1869-1954), whose predilection for exploring and using colour and composition in unique and vibrant

ways fills his paintings with bold colours and techniques associated with the Fauvist Art movement. The thoughts of the painter Paul Gauguin were known to Matisse: writing about art and color, Gauguin said “How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion”. To his students, Matisse spoke not of red or orange, but vermilion. From around 1912, goldfish, which had been introduced to Europe from East Asia in 17th century, became a recurring subject in the work of Matisse. They appear in no less than nine of his paintings, as well as in his drawings and prints. For Matisse, the goldfish came to symbolize a tranquil state of mind and a lost paradise. Visiting Tangier, Matisse had been intrigued to see how people would daydream for hours, gazing into goldfish bowls. In his paintings, the goldfish immediately attract attention, due to their colour: vermilion. The bright red-orange, so evident and seemingly bursting with its components of red and yellow fused in a dense complicated colour, contrasts strongly to surrounding blues and greens, each made brighter by the presence of the other.

This is an excerpt of the first movement of Geoffrey Gordon's Creavit Deus Hominem, for oboe and orchestra, from the world premiere performance by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conductor Duncan Ward and soloist José Luis García Vegara, for whom the orchestra commissioned the new work, which is inspired by the Synchromism art movement of the early 20th c.

Performance: Hr-Sendesaal, Frankfurt, Germany...2 June 2023.

This is the live premiere performance of Geoffrey Gordon's la terre est bleue comme une orange No. 2 (the earth is blue like an orange) - a work for string quartet inspired by French surrealist poet Paul Eluard's iconic poem.

This work was commissioned by the San Francisco-based Friction Quartet and the premieres took place on 23 and 24 September 2022 at Noe Valley Ministry and Ruth Bancroft Garden in San Francisco.

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The earth Is blue like an orange

No error the words do not lie

They no longer allow you to sing

In the tower of kisses agreement

The madness the love

She her mouth of alliance

All the secrets all the smiles

Or what dress of indulgence

To believe in quite naked.

The wasps flourish greenly

Dawn goes by round her neck

A necklace of windows

You are all the solar joys

All the sun of this earth

On the roads of your beauty.

- Paul Eluard

(translated from the French)

This is a performance of Geoffrey Gordon's Quintettsatz (drawn from his QUINTET for clarinet and strings) given by Ensemble De Sono Futura, Turin, Italy - 8 March 2017.

This is the world premiere performance of the two trumpet version of Geoffrey Gordon's He Saith Among the Trumpets, with Paul Merkelo, solo trumpet, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Stéphane Beaulac, principal trumpet, Orchestre Métropolitain - with percussionist Josh Wynnyk - recorded at Maison Symphonique, Montréal Quebec, 22 April 2021.

This work, originally for solo trumpet in C, was commissioned on behalf of soloist Simon Höfele, who gave the premiere performance at Wigmore Hall, London, England – 22 September 2020.

"He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha;

and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains,

and the shouting."

(Job 39:25)

He saith among the trumpets draws inspiration and title from the second book of poems by one of the best known British poets of the Second World War, Alun Lewis (1915-1944). The collection was published posthumously in 1945 and charts Lewis’ short day's journey into night, the thunder of cannon filling his pages, along with clash of steel, clatter of horses' hooves and bubbles of blood 'neath stiff upper lips, prophetically “till a bullet stopped his song”.

In November 1942, Lewis had sailed for India and in early 1944 he was moved to the Burmese front. On his way, at Arakan in Lower Burma, he was killed in a mysterious incident involving his own pistol. Drawing on the bristling energy and brooding lyricism which unfolds through the verses, this new work for solo trumpet presents an expressive and dramatic musical reaction to the inspiration of Lewis’ poetry, through Gordon’s highly idiomatic language. An opening Prelude transforms into a Fanfare of battlefield colour, violence and personal tragedy, followed by a Nocturne of nihilism holy in its intensity. Motifs challenge and suspend, contrasting open and muted effects, evoking the raw imagery and bitter truths of soldiering, in sound, rhythm and dynamic contrast. In his last letter to his publishers, Alun Lewis wrote of these poems that they should be read as the musical score of a life that will again express itself in prose when the din of war and preparation for war had died down, and there was time again to write and rewrite. For Alun Lewis, those days would never come.

This is a studio recording of composer Geoffrey Gordon's new work for tenor trombone and piano, Vermilion, after the painting by Henri Matisse, with soloist Yu Tamaki Hoso and pianist Kosuke Akimoto, recorded in Tokyo, 28 August 2021.

PROGRAM NOTES:

"I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish" said renowned French artist, Henri Matisse (1869-1954), whose predilection for exploring and using color and composition in unique and vibrant ways fills his paintings with bold imagery often associated with the Fauvist Art movement. The thoughts of the painter Paul Gauguin were known to Matisse: writing about art and color, Gauguin said “How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion”. To his students, Matisse spoke not of red or orange, but vermilion. From around 1912, goldfish, which had been introduced to Europe from East Asia in 17th century became a recurring subject in the work of Matisse. They appear in no less than nine of his paintings, as well as in his drawings and prints. For Matisse, the goldfish came to symbolize a tranquil state of mind and a lost paradise. Visiting Tangier, Matisse had been intrigued to see how people would daydream for hours, gazing into goldfish bowls. In his paintings, the goldfish immediately attract attention due to their color: vermilion. The bright red-orange, so evident and seemingly bursting with its components of red and yellow fused in a dense complicated color, contrasts strongly to surrounding blues and greens, each made brighter by the presence of the other.

This is a live recording of composer Geoffrey Gordon's work for solo harp, Jeux de Création, commissioned for Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra principal harp, Anne-Sophie Bertrand. The studio recording of this work will be released on the Naxos label (the CD will also be called Jeux de Création) in October 2021.

PROGRAM NOTES:

Jeux de Création, for solo harp, takes inspiration from the aesthetic sound world of the 1920’s, as seen through the lens of the composer’s own contemporary classical language. Thematic material drawn from two landmark works of the era - Claude Debussy’s Jeux and Darius Milhaud’s La Création du Monde – are woven into the fabric of this expressive modern score of eight virtuoso minutes. Extended techniques, including xylophonics, harmonics, palm clusters and flutter glissandi, are interwoven with more traditional harp gestures to draw a vivid portrait of musical creation games.

Geoffrey Gordon

17 May 2021

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“Jeux de Création by the American composer Geoffrey Gordon is a brilliant, even spectacular work in all respects.”

- Pizzicato (November 2021)

"French-American harpist Anne-Sophie Bertrand plays a diverse program of music for harp, going back as far as E.T.A. Hoffmann, the older colleague and promoter of Beethoven, and as far forward as American composer Geoffrey Gordon.

Absolutely the most interesting piece on this entire album is Gordon’s Jeux de Création, music that is not just modern but very creative and highly atmospheric."

- The Art Music Lounge (November 2021)

Horn soloist Tommi Hyytinen (Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra), mezzo soprano Niina Keitel and pianist Marko Hilpo give the European premiere of composer Geoffrey Gordon's chamber vocal work, Winterleben, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland - Monday, 7 June 2021 . Winterleben is a song cycle setting five texts, in German, by Mahler's favorite poet, Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano. This work was originally commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, and first premiered in Zipper Hall,Los Angeles, on 7 August 2015.

Horn soloist Tommi Hyytinen (Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra), mezzo soprano Niina Keitel and pianist Marko Hilpo give the European premiere of composer Geoffrey Gordon's chamber vocal work, Winterleben, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland - Monday, 7 June 2021 . Winterleben is a song cycle setting five texts, in German, by Mahler's favorite poet, Friedrich Rückert, for mezzo, horn and piano. This work was originally commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, and first premiered in Zipper Hall,Los Angeles, on 7 August 2015.