Neos' second release with Laurie ALTMAN – another superbly recorded disc by Judith Sherman. Laurie Altman’s own music allows some insight into his relation to composers like Schoenberg and Korngold.

Liner notes in German, English, and French

“Divergence”: the moving away from a centre; the personal iteration from before into what comes after through change, chance and manipulation: pathways redirected and abandoned, options tested, then deployed.

Arnold Schönberg diverges from 19th century romantic expansions into a realm of derivative cells, “rowed” together seamlessly to dissolve traditional tonal access. “Consonances are easier to understand than dissonances; and though dissonances are harder to understand, they are not incomprehensible (as the history of music indeed proves) so long as they occur in the right surroundings-then nobody will be able to dispute them.” (Arnold Schönberg, Style and Idea, University of California Press).

Erich Korngold’s romantic and emotional music defies and diverges from ongoing styles and trends emphasizing atonality and serialism to create a musical tapestry full of emotional intensity and beauty, while Duke Ellington’s music diverges from categorical definition, liberating itself through extended compositions, suites and inventive orchestrations into a place beyond the sometimes narrowly defined parameters of Jazz.