WINDSCAPE WIND QUINTET

• Antonin Dvorak

"I found this disc to be an unexpected delight... Transcribing this much-loved music was a gamble that happens to pay off beautifully... Windscape and pianist Jeremy Denk handle the [Piano Quintet's] many changes of tempo and character with as much fluency and naturalness as any string performance that I’ve heard.  It’s a brilliant and suitably playful performance...Jeremy Denk is one of the most gifted pianists of his generation and his career seems to be developing into a major one... In the Romance, the wind quintet plays the orchestral part, with the solo part taken by violinist Daniel Phillips – a very successful performance... The String Quartet works, (dare I say it?) as well for winds as it does for strings... MSR’s recorded sound is perfect: clear, precise, warm and, even though Dvořák’s chamber music evokes the Czech countryside more than the city, the cover’s black and white photo of Prague’s Charles Bridge is stunning... No praise would be high enough for the impeccable, lively playing of each of Windscape’s players... "

Paul Orgel, Classical Voice of New England - May 2009

"Once you've heard the opening theme of the Quintet played by David Jolley's horn, there's no going back. It captures the whole tenor of a Romantic century in a handful of notes...these well-balanced tapes project Windscape, and also Denk's piano in lifelike fashion...Philips plays the violin Romance beautifully, and passionately. The Quintet interpretation is positive, dramatic, and involving in its own right...these are vigorous, pioneering accounts. Great fun, stimulating, and recommended."

Fanfare - March / April 2008

"Here [David Jolley's] transcriptions are sensitive to all the nuances, dynamics, and character of the originals. Windscape is a very versatile ensemble and performs with the mindset of a string quartet. An exceptional ensemble like this one can bring out nuance and character in the music that only the new instruments are capable of. This is most certainly a recording you should add to your collection."

American Record Guide - March / April 2008

"This is a remarkable recording of gorgeous music...[The Piano Quintet] is a convincing transcription, skillfully achieving a fine balance, and with allk the nuances captured in a truly masterful manner..."

The Horn Call - February 2008

"A trio of wise transformations can be heard on this new disc...Windscape proves that the transference of string parts to winds can work beautifully in works by the Czech composer. Jolley has paid such close attention to wind timbre as he divides the [Quintet] material...that the music flows in all its emotional generosity and vigor...[Jeremy Denk plays the piano part] with sensitivity to phrasing, nuance and balance...[the Quartet] is deliniated with refined, loving care. Daniel Phillips shapes phrases so poignantly in tandem with the winds' elegance that the result is a performance of serene loveliness"

Gramophone - January 2008

"... if you are interested in fine readings of great music regardless of genre, stick around a bit and let me tell you about a really fine disc played to the hilt by some sensational musicians...the transcriptions are very successful, inasmuch as your attention is quickly led away from the fact that these are transcriptions at all, and towards their intense musicality. There is more punch and vigor in these pieces than in the string originals... these folks play with the requisite style and swagger needed to successfully sell this music to us, and it works well...sumptuous playing by Daniel Philips... if you are looking for a new take on these pieces, or especially if you simply desire to hear some impeccable musicianship, this is for you."

Audiophile Audition - February 2008

"Windscape...plays Dvorak's music with an unusual degree of sensitivity and insight, tapping into all the emotion of the composer's chamber music without milking it too heavily, as some are tempted to do. This is also a nicely chosen program, which includes an arrangement for violin and wind quintet of Dvorak's Romance for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 11. Recommended."

CD HotList for Libraries - December 2007

"Featuring lovely transcriptions of Dvorák's monumental Opus 81 Piano Quintet, his melancholy String Quartet Opus 51, and his soulful Romance Opus 11, this disc will be at once familiar and surprising to Dvorák fans. It is also on the short list of the most beautiful recordings of Dvorák's chamber music for winds...The players of Windscape are all first-rate soloists and equally adept ensemble players, blending and balancing with an ease and musicality on par with the best string quartets. Pianist Jeremy Denk and violinist Daniel Philips prove to be superb partners as well. Produced, engineered, edited and mastered in utterly natural sound by Richard Price, this disc is as good as it gets in the woodwind world."

All Music Guide - October 2007

"Windscape is one of the most talented quintets of today. Their contributions to the [wind quintet] literature are sure not to be lost, and their performance ability is sure to be not soon imitated."

American Record Guide -  March/April 2006
 

Created in 1994 by five eminent woodwind soloists, WINDSCAPE has won a unique place for itself as a vibrant, ever-evolving group of musical individualists, an "unquintet" which has delighted audiences throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia. Windscape's innovative programs and accompanying presentations are created to take listeners on a musical and historical world tour, evoking through music and engaging commentary vivid cultural landscapes of distant times and places.

As Artists-in-Residence at the Manhattan School of Music, the members of Windscape are master teachers, imparting not only the secrets of instrumental virtuosity, but also presenting a distinctive concert series, hailed for its creative energy and musical curiosity. The series offers the perfect setting for the ensemble to devise new--sometimes startling-programs, and experiment with new arrangements and repertoire combinations. Popular programs which have emerged from this process in recent seasons include "The Roaring 20's",  "The Fabulous 50's", "The Young Titan: Beethoven Comes to Vienna", and "East Meets West: The Music of Japan and the Impressionists".

The 2006-2007 season takes them from coast to coast, with concerts in Portland, Oregon and at Wolftrap in Vienna, Virginia. Past seasons include performances at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra, at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as recitals in Philadelphia, Madison, Wisconsin, Charlottesville, Virginia and Reno, Nevada, in addition to other cities around the United States. Recent highlights include their Kennedy Center debut, tapings for NPR's "Performance Today" and Minnesota Public Radio's "St. Paul Sunday", performance "Live From Glenn Gould Studio" for CBC-Toronto, and a tour of New Zealand. Windscape has given concerts and master classes in Boston, New York, San Francisco, College Park, Des Moines, Omaha and Winter Park, Florida, among others. They have collaborated with esteemed chamber musicians, including Eugene Istomin, Andre Michel Schub, John Kimura Parker, Daniel Phillips and Anne Marie McDermott.

www.windscape5.com

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist and teacher. Born into a musical family, Mr. Phillips began violin studies at age four with his father Eugene Phillips, a composer and former violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He continued his professional training at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Sally Thomas, and later worked with Sandor Vegh and George Neikrug. As a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1976, he performed recitals at New York's Alice Tully Hall and the 92nd Street "Y" and has performed as soloist with many  leading symphony orchestra, including Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix and San Antonio. He appears regularly at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto USA ,Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, and the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England. He is a veteran of the Marlboro Music Festival and a past participant at the Lockenhaus Kammermusikfest. He has toured and recorded with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian and Yo-Yo Ma. Daniel Phillips is a founding member of the Orion String Quartet, which tours internationally. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where they are the quartet-in-residence, presented the Orion in the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets in six free concerts as a new millennium gift to New York City in May, 2000. Each concert honored a different childrens’ arts organization. Mr. Phillips is Professor of Violin at the Aaron Copland School of Music of Queens College.

Pianist Jeremy Denk has built a reputation as one of today's most compelling young artists, with a wide-ranging, challenging repertoire. A 1998 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, he also won the 1997 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in June 2005, and has appeared as soloist at the Ravinia festival, with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Youth Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra in Royal Festival Hall and Juilliard Orchestra under Kurt Masur in Avery Fisher Hall. His current performing repertoire ranges from standard works to those of Messiaen, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Kirchner and Ives, and he maintains working relationships with a number of living composers. Mr. Denk is an avid chamber musician, and has collaborated with leading string quartets, including the Borromeo, Brentano, Mirò, St. Lawrence, Shanghai and Vermeer. He has appeared at numerous festivals, including those of Santa Fe, Seattle, and the Spoleto Festivals in Italy and Charleston, and has spent several summers at the Marlboro Music School in Vermont and been part of "Musicians from Marlboro" national tours. Jeremy Denk studied at the Oberlin Conservatory, and later earned a master's degree in music from Indiana University as a pupil of György Sebök, and a doctorate in piano performance from the Juilliard School, where he worked with Herbert Stessin.

ANTONIN DVORAK
Piano Quintet in A major, Op.81
Quartet in E-flat, Op.51
Romance for Violin, Op.11



MSR Classics