Fun with Intervals Andrew Rangell

• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750): Duetto No. 1 in E minor, BWV 802:
• 1Bach: Duetto No. 1 in E minor, BWV 80202:49
• Duetto No. 2 in F major, BWV 803:
• 2Bach: Duetto No. 2 in F major, BWV 80303:00
• Duetto No. 3 in G major, BWV 804:
• 3Bach: Duetto No. 3 in G major, BWV 80402:29
• Duetto No. 4 in A minor, BWV 805:
• 4Bach: Duetto No. 4 in A minor, BWV 80502:23
• Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring:
• 5Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring03:37
• Luigi Dallapiccola (1904 - 1975): Quaderno musicale di Annalibera:
• 6Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: I. Simbolo02:34
• 7Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: II. Accenti00:26
• 8Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: III. Contrapunctus Primus01:02
• 9Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: IV. Linee00:42
• 10Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: V. Contrapunctus Segundus00:25
• 11Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: VI. Fregi00:58
• 12Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: VII. Andantino Amoroso e Contrapunctus Tertius00:59
• 13Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: VIII. Ritmi01:06
• 14Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: IX. Colore01:15
• 15Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: X. Ombre02:44
• 16Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera: XI. Quartina01:49
• Richard Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval:
• 17Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: I. Recitativo. Canon at the unison00:43
• 18Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: II. Alla Marcia. Canon at the minor second00:28
• 19Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: III. Comico. Inversion canon at the major second00:51
• 20Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: IV. Sognando. Modulating canon at the minor third00:36
• 21Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: V. Waltz Burleske. Canon at the major third00:37
• 22Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: VI. Agitato01:07
• 23Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: VII. Allegro Sarcastico. Canon at the tritone00:47
• 24Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: VIII. Grave. Canon at the perfect fifth01:07
• 25Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: IX. Scherzando. Canon at the minor sixth00:43
• 26Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: X. Tranquillo. Canon at the major sixth00:51
• 27Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: XI. Tumultuoso. Retrograde canon at the minor seventh00:27
• 28Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: XII. Misterioso. Augmentation canon at the major seventh00:49
• 29Atkinson: Thirteen Canons at Each Interval: XIII. Recitativo. Allegro Furioso: Canon at the octave03:11
• Stefan Wolpe (1902 - 1972): Passacaglia:
• 30Wolpe: Passacaglia14:30
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (alternate take):
• 31Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (alternate take)03:42
• Total Runtime58:47

Info for Fun with Intervals

Despite the playful title, the music on Andrew Rangell’s new STEINWAY album is actually quite serious, even austere and cerebral. While Atkinson's canons and Bach's duets will surprise with their immediate elegance and eloquence, Dallapiccola and Wolpe supply the kind of meaning and beauty requiring more sustained attention. With that, these pieces will yield much in the way of color, wit, sensuality, and poignancy.

As Mr. Rangell writes in his program notes, the pieces on this program can be said to constitute a sort of family, perhaps even a slightly forbidding one... Wolpe's Passacaglia, in its subtitle, explicitly labels itself a "study", but all the other works are studies as well, concentrating on particular contrapuntal practices. Intervals being the building blocks of counterpoint. One such practice, rather severe and centuries old, is the canon, to which the Bach and Atkinson pieces here are seriously devoted. Dallapiccola's and Wolpe's works are predicated upon "rows" of selected pitches (thus, intervals): a 12-tone row for Dallapiccola, an "all-interval" row for Wolpe. A generalized observation applying to all of these pieces is that each contains a carefully chosen set of intervals which is then subject to various types of replication.

“Listeners will at once notice Rangell's anything but metronomic tempos and the extreme suppleness of his phrasing. His pedaling is rich, and his style, while not hyper-emotional, owes much to Romanticism.” (Classical Net Review)

“Rangell plays with imaginative flair... deeply expressive performances.” (New York Times)

Andrew Rangell, piano

Andrew Rangell
Long recognized as among the most eloquent and insightful interpreters of the major keyboard works of Bach and Beethoven, pianist Andrew Rangell has drawn acclaim for a variety of recordings, ranging from the music of Sweelinck, Farnaby, and Gibbons to that of Janacek, Enescu, Nielsen, Bartok, Valen, Christian Wolff, and many others. The present recording (Mr. Rangell's 30th disc) can be considered a counterpart, and complement, to his 2009 Bridge recording of Ives' First Piano Sonata, Nielsen's Op.45 Suite, and John McDonald's Meditation Before a Sonata (2003), a beautiful homage to Ives' Concord.

Andrew Rangell made his New York debut as winner of the Malraux Award of the Concert Artists’ Guild, and has since performed and lectured throughout the United States, and in Europe and Israel. He has also taught on the faculties of Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Tufts University. In the 1980s, already recognized as a distinctive recitalist and collaborative artist, Mr. Rangell gained national attention – and the award of an Avery Fisher Career Grant – for his vivid traversals of the complete Beethoven sonata-cycle in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Rochester, Denver, and other U.S. Cities. A hand injury sustained in 1991 forced Mr. Rangell to gradually alter the trajectory of his career, and eventually to place his highest priority on recording. In recent years he has created several DVDs for children – integrating his special talents as author, illustrator, narrator, and pianist.

Booklet for Fun with Intervals