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MP3 Dennis Ruff - Entrances and Exits
15 MP3 Songs
CLASSICAL: Contemporary
Details:
ENTRANCES AND EXITS, my eighth CD on CDBaby, centers around my new "Piano Sonata No. Five, ''The Stages of War.''" Its seven movements chronicle a devolution from angry accusation to its nadir in utter desolation. In its downward spiral, the music passes through stages of questioning, delusion, moves then from military preparation to invasion, and on to exhaustion and a numb victory. Without a doubt, it is the most violent and tragic music I have composed -- even when placed beside my "Piano Sonata No. 3, ''In Time of War,''" from late 2001.
Bracketing the piano sonata are four works of far less weighty intention. Although the "Intrada on a Motif of Philip Glass" that opens the CD is based on the seventh movement of Glass'' "Koyannisqatsi," -- a work of serious import whose title comes from a Hopi word meaning "life out of balance," -- my use of the three note motif results in a march that is ceremonial and triumphant rather than war-like and threatening.
The "Musical Reflections on Three Haiku" that follows "Intrada" is an instrumental "translation" of three haiku poems I wrote over a period of several decades. The instrumentation is somewhat novel in that the first poem is written for flute and guitar, the second adds a bassoon, and the third adds a piano. The overall effect of the pieces is impressionistic with a mildly melancholic flavor.
I placed the "Chamber Concerto,''Spring,''" immediately following the piano sonata. The three movements of this work are meant to suggest the three months of the season, roughly approximating the months of April, May and June. This work is everything one would expect of music meant to suggest Spring. It is buoyant, rhapsodic and brightly optimistic by turns. I felt that it was needed as a change of atmosphere, even as an antidote, after the intensely emotional "Piano Sonata No. 5."
The final piece, "Hymn to the Earth" -- which is dedicated to a friend of many decades, Marie Potter -- is scored for wordless chorus, with the addition of steel drums, timpani, French horn and piano. I wanted to exit this ENTRANCES AND EXITS CD in a spirit of exultation, and with a sense of yearning for a future in which this planet that created us is cherished and protected, not savaged and desecrated for short-term gain. If only it might be so...
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