Orchestral Masters Vol. 2

Edward Smaldone-The Beauty of Innuendo The Beauty of Innuendo was composed in 2013 at the invitation of conductor Daijiro Ukon and was first performed by him and the Oratorio Sinfonica Japan in Tokyo in March 2013. The title comes from Thirteen Way of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens. This line comes from the fifth stanza of the poem: quot;I do not know which to prefer,/the beauty of inflections/or the beauty of innuendoes,/The blackbird whistling/or just after.quot; The line indicates the dilemma of the choice between the beauty of the inflections of the blackbird's whistling (i.e. - the beauty of a thing we experience directly), and the beauty of the innuendo of the memory of it (i.e. - the beauty of something that is absent). My composition therefore explores the beauty found in the memory of something that is not experienced directly. Peter Dayton-From Sombre Lands I had originally conceived From Sombre Lands (2013) as a work for solo piano. It was requested by a dear friend and fellow composer for a recital, which would connect Rachmaninoff's Etude Tableau in D Minor Op. 33, No. 4 and Chopin's Nocturne in B Major Op. 62, No. 1 on her program. I turned to the work of British semi-abstract landscape artist John Hitchens for inspiration, as works inspired by or responding to pieces of visual art have figured largely in my creative impetus, and I had already composed a piece based on the paintings of John's father, Ivon Hitchens, himself a well-respected modern landscape artist. While the painting was integral in beginning the piano composition, upon completion it seemed that the work had taken a different direction. However, when I orchestrated From Sombre Lands, I felt I recovered some of my original intentions, the use of varied timbres better matching Hitchen's own tactile, almost textile, textural variety and choice of warm colors than the piano's timbral limitations. From Sombre Lands is dedicated to Shelby Flowers and to Matthieu Cognet, who near-simultaneously performed this work at Vanderbilt University and as part of (SUNY) Stony Brook University's 2013 Piano Project respectively. The piano version was awarded first prize in the national division and fourth prize in the international division of the Golden Key Music Festival Piano Composition Competition. The recording is dedicated to John Hitchens, with whom I am privileged to have kept up a lively correspondence. Symon Clarke-Three Orbits The piece is in three movements and each relates to one of Saturn's many moons: Iapetus, Hyperion and Tethys. Each movement follows the form of an arch that begins and ends in a similar place, rather like the journey of a single orbit. The three movements together also form an arch and the whole piece completes a circle that ends where it began. All the movements are related to each other by taking their thematic and harmonic material from the same source as they all revolve around the larger planet Saturn. The main themes of the piece are finally distilled and heard as instrumental solos towards the end of the final movement (Tethys). Hyperion is a unique moon in the solar system in that it tumbles around unpredictably on it's own axis as it orbits Saturn-this is reflected in the somewhat turbulent music of the middle movement. Beyond that, the music does not relate to the orbits of the moons but rather to the characteristics of the Greek gods after which they are named. Iapetus the god of mortality and craftsmanship; Hyperion the god o