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Artist Guide » Classical » Contemporary » JOHN PATRICK THOMAS: Millennia, Music for Harpsichords 1974-2000
Why harpsichord? Various reasons. From the practical standpoint, in my career as a countertenor I worked with a number of excellent Early Music harpsichordists who also had a keen interest in New Music. Over the years, a number of these players, who liked the music I'd written, asked me to write something for them. I also got to know instrument builders in Paris who encouraged me to press on. I love the sound of classical harpsichords and am continually amazed at the variety of colors available. Sounds with which we are familiar in certain musical contexts take on a special tension and vitality when we hear them in others. I also like the freedom of manuever which permits abstract material as well as music which is more referential in character. Perhaps it's an American thing not to feel threatened by or in competition with the past. A number of these pieces were conceived as companions for works from the instrument's great repertoire although, frankly, I'm not very interested in historicisms. I think The Music of Our Time is all the music, present or past, available in our global culture. It's a unique historical position which I feel no need to resist. Of course, if I'd had an equivalent access to an electronic studio, I would have happily written a great deal of music using new media and technologies. But my fate has led me to do something else.

Small Birds (1974), for solo harpsichord, was written as a companion piece for related character pieces by Rameau and Francois Couperin. The piece is dedicated to the Parisian harpsichord builder Reinhard von Nagel, Monica Chanler von Nagel, and their six children.

Pages (1988), for two harpsichords, consists of very restricted, hard-edged musical material, initially confined to single pages, which spills over into more extended fields of energy. The work was written at the request of Christine Daxelhofer and is dedicated to her and Irene Müller-Glasewald.

Imaginary Dances (1997), for solo harpsichord, is a set of pieces drawing on the tradition of the harpsichord suites of stylized dances from the 17th and 18th centuries. The five movements, in no way pastiches, are related to particular places and players which have brought me into contact with the great tradtion of harpsichord playing. The work is dedicated to Christine Daxelhofer and is played here by her distinguished student, Kristian Nyquist.

Millennium Music (2000) was commissioned by the three players featured in this recording to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach. The work, for three harpsichordists, is a companion piece for the Bach C-Major Concerto for three harpsichords and may be viewed as a kind of fan letter to the great composer, full of exhuberance and hope at the beginning of a new age. While the music of Bach provides a perspective on the past, another point of departure for the piece, anchoring it in the present and aiming it toward the future, was my encounter with the shimmering architecture of Frank Gehry.

Check out the artist's website:
http://www.johnpatrickthomas.de

Track List:
1. Small Birds (1974)
2. Pages (1988)
3. Imaginary Dances (1997) No. 1: Hamburg Hustle
4. No. 2: Slow Dancing in Karlsruhe
5. No. 3: Buffalo Shuffle
6. No. 4: Thun Tango
7. No. 5: Berkeley Rocks
8. Millennium Music (2000) No. 1
9. No. 2
10. No. 3

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