Ensemble Arcadiana, Thomas Kemp - Eleanor Alberga: Works for Chamber Ensemble (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Dancing in the Shadow: I. Duo for Clarinet & Piano
02. Dancing in the Shadow: II. Trio for Flute, Violin & Cello
03. Dancing in the Shadow: III. Quartet for Flute, Clarinet, Piano & Percussion
04. Dancing in the Shadow: IV. Quintet for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello & Piano
05. Dancing in the Shadow: V. Sextet for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Piano & Percussion
06. On a Bat's Back I Do Fly
07. Langvad

Eleanor Alberga is always at pains to tell her listeners that her pieces can be enjoyed as pure music, without narrative and associations. So, the three pieces in this album evoke countless varieties of moods, textures, relationships and energies that will speak uniquely to the ear of each individual listener. But Eleanor’s ever-curious, inventive and fertile sensibility means there is almost always an intriguing subtext of her own to everything she writes. And this is always worth exploring.

Dancing with the Shadow was written in 1990 and is scored for six solo instrumentalists. Eleanor conceived the piece as an evocation of the individual’s attempts to explore their darker side, the “shadow” of the title. She describes the piece as, “consistently dealing with the negative and positive sides of the human psyche and charting the way an individual comes to terms with and even embraces the riches of their shadow.” The journey therefore is not one fraught with drama and crisis but is more of a playful dialogue - by turns dreamy, animated, reflective and humorous. Each movement is scored for a different combination of instruments, and each successive movement adds an extra player.

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