On this CD:
1. Suite for Piano
Composed by David MacDonald
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
2. Piano Sonata
Composed by Jonathan Faiman
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
3. Maracaibo, for piano
Composed by Ken Sullivan
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
4. Piano Sonata
Composed by Eric Samuelson
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
5. Dynamophone, for piano
Composed by David Shohl
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
6. Five Vaults, for piano
Composed by Jonathan Faiman
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
7. Funk Studies (3) for piano
Composed by Derek Bermel
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
8. Winter Again, for piano
Composed by Ricky Ian Gordon
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
9. Dodecaphunk, for piano
Composed by Derek Bermel
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
10. Desire Rag, for piano
Composed by Ricky Ian Gordon
Performed by Jonathan Faiman
Hie Up The Mountain, Music, Derek Bermel, Jonathan Faiman, Ricky Ian Gordon, David MacDonald, Eric Samuelson, David Shohl, Ken Sullivan, Jonathan Faiman, Chamber Music & Recitals, Classical, Classical Composers, Keyboard
Average customer rating: 
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Hie Up The Mountain
Manufacturer: Msr Classics ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD  Chamber Music
| Forms & Genres
| Classical (c.1770-1830)
| Historical Periods
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
General
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
General
| Chamber Music
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B00000K2U4 Release Date: 1999-08-24 |
Customer Reviews:
Rave Review from Society for American Music (Spring 2001)!.......2002-07-09
Pianist Jonathan Faiman's own Piano Sonata shows a ready technique, and has some interesting passages. His collection of miniatures, Five Vaults, is quite diverse and mostly delightful. The opening movement, "First," has an irresistible rhythmic figure that returns in two later movements. "Poise" and "Float" are especially charming. David Macdonald's Suite for Piano, inspired by French Baroque harpsichord music, varies greatly in mood and style over its three movements. The lovely "Menuet" hints somewhat of Ravel, and there are carillon-like sonorities reminiscent of Federico Mompou, yet Macdonald's music has a beauty, and a toughness, all its own.
Ken Sullivan's Maracaibo is predictably tropical and lush, but has some surprises and memorable moments. Eric Samuelson's five-movement Sonata for Piano opens with a tough Allegro movement that hints at some of the many earlier masters this very good composer acknowledges. Two fine waltzes frame a magnificent chorale, entitled "Sanctus," the centerpiece of this excellent sonata. The last movement, "Lost Shadow Rag" (a reference to Peter Pan?), is a study in rhythmic displacement, reminiscent of William Bolcom's piano rages, but with a wayward quality that suggests Satie.
David Shohl's Dynamophone -- tough, muscular piano music, and genuinely exciting -- puts Faiman's considerable technique to the test. Derek Bermel's Three Funk Studies makes a lively impression, particularly the last, which is funky indeed. His Dodecaphunk, described by the composer as a twelve-tone jazz fugue, is jaunty and never sounds academic. Ricky Ian Gordon, the best known of these young masters, is represented by two wonderful pieces, the intense, moody Winter Again and the brief, creamy Desire Rag. This Musicians Showcase disc is a major contribution to the available body of music by the generation now making its mark in American music. If you only afford one of these five discs reviewed here, then Hie Up the Mountain is unquestionably the one to get.
Fanfare Raves!.......2000-01-11
I am still trying to work out the reason for the disc's title, though Jonathan Faiman and Friends would have been appropriate, the program having been derived from this musical relationship. Faiman pursues a career as pianist, teacher, vocal coach, and composer, and in these various roles has come into contact with the New York City musicians featured in this release. Stylistically they are very different, their inspirational roots embracing the tonal and atonal schools of composition. Though each provides a most interesting contribution to the disc, it is the very personal musical voice of Faiman that strikes me as particularly interesting. The Sonata dating from 1992 and revised in 1996 is in direct lineage of Copland and Barber, each of the four movements nicely contrasted in mood and rhythm. The mercurial scherzo is a most absorbing experience, the music sizzling with vitality. Five Vaults refers to the gymnastic activity, and requires the soloist to perform tests of agility in a score of wit and charm.
Eric Samuelson was born in Cincinnati in 1970, and now combines his work as a composer with an educational Career at Union County College in New Jersey. His Sonata of 1997 moves with perplexing rapidity between the influences of Rossini, Berlioz, and Chopin, the 19th-century waltz of the second movement coming as a complete surprise after the aggressive opening Allegro. To introduce the "Lost Shadow Rag" as the fifth and final movement is certainly indicative of a fresh approach to piano-sonata form. Derek Bermel also enjoys a dual musical role, his clarinet virtuosity having taken him throughout North America and Europe. He still embraces tonality in his works, the pulse of the final "Jaunt" being quite irresistible. Dodecaphunk was his student project, a twelve-tone jazz fugue, the resulting score being lively and somehow managing to revert to a form of tonality. The remaining major work, in terms of duration, comes from David MacDonald [sic], and was, in the composer's words, "inspired by the Baroque keyboard suites," though the result has a very progressive modernity to the texture. The dramatic and highly charged Dynamophone from the immensely talented David Shohl; Maracaibo, a brief work of considerable melodic attraction from Buffalo-born Ken Sullivan; and a suitable chilling Winter Again and the whimsical Desire Rag from Ricky Ian Gordon complete the disc.
Faiman is a most agile pianist, surmounting each musical challenge with apparent ease. Above all his performances have come from deep inside him, that security with which he plays each work conveying his total commitment to the music. The recording engineers have added a superb tonal quality, with Faiman also taking the role of the session producer. I would also like to acknowledge the fact that it is very welcome to encounter a release in which the gap between the works is so extended as to give the listener ample breathing space.
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