Special offer. Christopher Fox: Topophony
WDR Sinfonieorchester Koln
Fox is skilled at using systematic processes flexibly, to overtly expressive ends. His music establishes textures that convey emotion through materials that are not obviously traditional…The...
Special offer. Christopher Fox: Topophony
WDR Sinfonieorchester Koln
Purchase product
Fox is skilled at using systematic processes flexibly, to overtly expressive ends. His music establishes textures that convey emotion through materials that are not obviously traditional…The...
About
Improvisation and composition as forcefield. The conundrum remains: how can one combine these two approaches to musical forming without one or the other being compromised or diluted? Christopher Fox has decided to have the best of both worlds. The soloists and the orchestral musicians are assigned roles that enable them to play to their strengths. The conductor mediates. The forcefield is maintained. Just as the improvisers are told not to study the orchestra music, to avoid coming to a fixed idea of that soundworld, so too are the orchestra and conductor confronted with the sonic, dynamic and gestural unpredictabilty of the soloists.Improvisation and interpretation meet head to head.
Contents and tracklist
- Alex Dörner, Thomas Lehn, Paul Lovens, John Butcher
- WDR Sinfonieorchester
- Ilan Volkov
I.
Track length23:48
This track is only available as an album download.
II.
Track length23:52
This track is only available as an album download.
III.
Track length21:12
This track is only available as an album download.
Awards and reviews
November 2018
Fox is skilled at using systematic processes flexibly, to overtly expressive ends. His music establishes textures that convey emotion through materials that are not obviously traditional…The musical results, in performances of exemplary concentration, are absorbing enough to pre-empt the inevitable question – why listen to something involving improvisation more than once?
November 2018
Ultimately we get three versions of a fascinating, flexible piece. In each case the landscape seems oddly more familiar, and yet the photographs of each visitor's trip are disarmingly different. The sounds produced by each of the four solo musicians by turn surprise, beguile, occasionally alarm and even reassure...The recording is superbly detailed yet projects a palpable warmth. It's another feather in the cap for Werner X Uehlinger's visionary and indispensible Hat Art label.