RECOMMENDED LISTENING ORDER BLIND BEACH (track #11) Our most popular track, Blind Beach is a musical ballade, which tenderly reflects on a long journey's end with feelings of both joy and sadness. (NOW AVAILABLE ON ITUNES). HIDDEN REFLECTION (track #2) An improvisation that conveys travel through vast landscapes and horizons. Hidden Reflection leaves one contemplating thoughts and feelings hidden deep within ourselves. BREAKING OUT (track #7, DG solo) Explosive! A musical battle. Expressing intense emotions with the determination of being free, (be patient, it kicks in 1 minute into the sample). SOULACE (track #8, FM solo) An introspective piece that follows in counterpoint to Breaking Out. Soulace transmits feelings of grieving, surrendering, nostalgia and is rich in deep spiritual meaning. PRECIPICE (track #2) As the name suggest, this piece places the listener on the edge, perhaps up high on a mountain overlooking a valley in a remote land. One can almost perceive eagles flying high over the vast terrain of mountains and feel the cold emanating from snow and glacier peaks. OBSTACLES (track #4, FM solo) This performance has been described as "piano opera". The opening theme begins with a foreboding bass line and is joined by a pleading alto voice. The musical drama is beautifully sustained throughout the entire piece. RISING UP (track #6 DG solo) A mystical/romantic improvisation whose underlying theme is despair and yearning. In the end, listeners find themselves rising out of the abyss into a realm of hope and wonder. THE INTRUDER (track #5) This music contains multiple sections that progress deep into realms that can only be described as otherworldly, (unfortunately not fully evident in this short sample). **************** ONCOURSE is a musical voyage. All selections have been placed in a specific order that reflects an emotional journey. Musical influences include Franz Schubert, Alan Hovaness, Cyprien Katsaris, Keith Jarret, Keith Emerson, Maurice Ravel, Bill Evans, Dmitri Shostokovich, Bela Bartok, Igor Stavinsky, Fredric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Johann S. Bach, Claude Debussy, The Beatles and many more. For more musical samples, please visit our website at Classicbingbong.net. -------------- ABOUT THE ARTIST A concert given by David Glass and Francis Martineau is truly music-making in action. It is an event which generates a combination of rapt attention, intrigue and playfulness rarely found in present-day musical performances. In fact it is more to models of the past that these pianists have turned for inspiration: to the intimacy of the 19th century ‘salon,’ for example, or to the dramatic contests in improvisation that have become lost even further back in time. Take into account an open piano in the center of a living-room, closely ringed by audience members on all sides. Consider, also, that the musicians are in constant movement: not just by way of their hands and the impromptu shifting of positions from one side of the piano bench to the other, but through full circlings of the instrument itself so that the sounds of its inner workings can be included in the music’s tapestry. Add to all this the fact that improvisation is the name of the game. The music is created in the moment, involving a lightening-quick communication between the players that in its very intensity draws the listener into the same spirit of adventure. As unusual and compelling as this setting may be, it is still the quality of the music that leads the way. It has much range and, because improvised, the moods can change all the more swiftly. There is a myriad of stylistic influences, including both classical and jazz traditions. There is simplicity and there is complexity, even, at times, an affectionate jostling between tonality and atonality. But most dominant of all is an irresistible romantic strain, a desire in the players to penetrate with an age-old lyricism the deeply resonant chambers of the heart. ABOUT THE CD "ONCOURSE: IMPROVISED PIANO FOR 4 HANDS" I do not know a precedence for four hand improvised piano music. For sure it conjures up its own particular sound, a large full-bodied sound, taking advantage of four hands working the extreme top and bottom of a single keyboard. But it is the playing experience, the original source of that sound, which lends to the music its most definite stamp. Two people sit shoulder to shoulder at the same instrument and ride the musical impulse of the moment simultaneously. They listen so intently, the one to the other, that it is impossible to tell whose impulse is leading, who is actually in charge of the creative process as it unfolds. They exchange such a complete involvement in the musical language that the slower labor of thought becomes eliminated. Most of all, in the constant jostling for position, a double buoyancy of spirit rises up that comes close to intoxication. This unification on so many levels in the recording studio allowed us to place absolute trust in the moment by moment development of the music; allowed us to set free the unconsciousness of its direction. We did not shape the journey; the journey shaped us, drawing us into its depths as we played, showing us places in ourselves we did not know existed, drawing out of us resources that, singly, we would not have been able to muster. This journey, we would like to believe, touches to some degree upon yours also; has a spacious enough frame to include as many variations of response as there are listening souls. Francis Martineau SOLO RECORDINGS BY FRANCIS MARTINEAU (available at Classicbingbong.net) FREE FALL INTO THE OCEAN OF AIR SOLO RECORDINGS BY DAVID GLASS (available at CDBABY.COM) BEETHOVEN/LISZT THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY (piano transcription)