Most of us know Geoffrey Burgon as the composer of Nunc dimittis, used as the theme music for the TV adaptation of John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. But he also seems to have a special affinity with the countertenor voice, for James Bowman has already made one CD of his music (EMI, 6/88 - nla). Above all Burgon has a natural, flowing melodic talent and that is immediately obvious in the first group of songs here, Merciless Beauty, where the alto voice is made to blend closely with the orchestral accompaniments. Indeed Bowman almost seems part of the orchestra, amid scoring that is semi-voluptuous, a little like Canteloube's Auvergne settings. All these seven songs are about love and bring haunting solo melismas, but the most striking is the title-number (a setting of Chaucer) while the closing 'Campionesque for Anna' matches the opening 'Western wind' in its seductively exotic line. The second cycle, this time for tenor, is entitled A Vision and consists of settings of John Clare (1793-1864) which focus on the countryside as seen through the eyes of an intuitive farm-worker poet. These songs are certainly no less atmospheric, but generally more restrained and reflective. Here the style reminded me a little of Britten, although Burgon is his own man, and all these settings are very touching, especially the closing 'Where the ash tree weaves'.
An interlude, The Calm (originally a ballet), offers instrumental writing, with the countertenor voice woven in, and is no less evocative in feeling. It begins with a pair of ethereal dialogues between harp and violin, which a trumpet joins, followed by a robust trumpet duet, and then a quintet, an amalgam of these instruments and moods. The closing section of The Calm, a dream couplet by Walt Whitman (which also inspired the ballet), returns to voices - overlapping, sustained, suspended vocal lines. I'm not sure this quite comes off, but the rest of the programme certainly does, and performances are warmly sensitive and beautifully recorded in an ideally warm ambience.'

Geoffrey Burgon 

The Calm by Geoffrey Burgon 1974

This is Volume 02 of my Piano Preludes Series. I started writing these piano works in 2018 and have just finished recording all 27 of them.
I will be releasing the complete series in Volumes of 5 or 6, this one being Volume 02 with 6 preludes.
They just came to me and I let myself be the messanger. Some works are gentle wisps of energy and others passionate displays of excitment.

Piano Preludes Vol 02

Prelude 06 - Catch Up

1 - Piano Prelude 06 (Catch Up) - Jacqueline Kroft

This is Volume 02 of my Piano Preludes Series. I started writing these piano works in 2018 and have just finished recording all 27 of them.
I will be releasing the complete series in Volumes of 5 or 6, this one being Volume 02 with 6 preludes.
They just came to me and I let myself be the messanger. Some works are gentle wisps of energy and others passionate displays of excitement..

Prelude 07 Moving Leaf

2 - Piano Prelude 07 (Moving Leaf) - Jacqueline Kroft

This is Volume 02 of my Piano Preludes Series. I started writing these piano works in 2018 and have just finished recording all 27 of them.
I will be releasing the complete series in Volumes of 5 or 6, this one being Volume 02 with 6 preludes.
They just came to me and I let myself be the messanger. Some works are gentle wisps of energy and others passionate displays of excitement.

Prelude 08- Straight Up

3 - Piano Prelude 08 (Straight Up) - Jacqueline Kroft

Prelude 09 Mornings with You

4 - Piano Prelude 09 (Mornings With You) - Jacqueline Kroft

Prelude 10 The Way

5 - Piano Prelude 10 (The Way) - Jacqueline Kroft

Prelude 11 Underwater Movement

6 - Piano Prelude 11 (Underwater Movement) - Jacqueline Kroft

I wrote The First Blossoms like the first steps into spring where there's this music developing under the ground from the sleeping fauna. We can't see anything but we feel the energy of the plants waking from slumber and feel a freshness in the air. I really like this time in spring, it's an awakening and then we get the explosion of life and colour. I played the piano in this way.

The First Blossoms

This song is a memoire, a vinaigrette of a lifetime friendship. 
 
The Wheel Remix is a perceptive interpretation and delicately reveals the power of this special person - Diane.

DIANE

Jacqueline Kroft - Diane MASTER

Tempest in a Teacup: “Playful. Cheeky. Retro. Cinematic. A smoky window into the bittersweet angst of love at a distance.” 


mp3hugger wrote: 
"What an interesting arrangement, of course recalling Venus as a Boy Bjork but if anything JK has put even more of herself into this so we get something as idiosyncratic as can be. It has an 80's fashion going for it so there were vestiges of Kate Bush going on here too with the result that we felt like were being spirited away to a lonely moor in deepest England. I adore that Jacqueline is following her own instincts here."

JacquelineKroft

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