Melodies Alone Can Proudly Carry Their Own Death
The Chamber Music of Gene Pritsker
COMPOSERS CONCORDANCE RECORDS
COMCON0037
Release 11/25/2016
Distributed by Naxos
Bar Code: 682500379710
All tracks recorded and mixed by Gene Pritsker at Pencil Factory studio & Noizepunk Studios
Except: Tracks 1 & 9 recorded by Jesse Germanò at Roma AG Studios,
Tracks 2-5 recorded by Zeitgeist,
Track 11 recorded by Borislav Strulev
Mastered by Sheldon Steiger
Art by Rainer Gross
Composer Gene Pritsker has written over five hundred ninety compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. All of his compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles and are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures.
The new chamber album ‘Melodies Alone Can Proudly Carry Their Own Death’ focuses on his solo, duo and trio compositions, including unusual instrumentation such as: piano/drum set, bass clarinet/electric guitar, and bass clarinet/percussion as well as more standard instrumentation like violin/cello, flute/clarinet/piano and solo music for violin and cello.
The music is performed by violinist Daniele Colombo, The Zeitgeist Ensemble: Patti Cudd - percussion, Pat O’Keefe - bass clarinet, Zentripetal Duo: Lynn Bechtold - violin, Jennifer DeVore - cello, bass clarinetist Michiyo Suzuki, and cellist Borislav Strulev as well as Gene himself on electric guitar. The title of the album, which is the name of the violin/cello composition’ comes from a paragraph in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Essay ‘Being and Nothingness’
The trees were floating. Thrusting toward the sky? Collapsing rather: at any moment I expected to see the trunks shrivel like weary pricks, curl up and fall to the ground in a soft, black, crumpled heap. They did not want to exist, only they could not help it; that was the point. So they performed all their little functions, quietly, unenthusiastically, the sap rose slowly into the earth. But at every moment they seemed on the verge of dropping everything and obliterating themselves. Tired and old, they went on existing, unwillingly and ungraciously, simply because they were too weak to die, because death could come to them only from the outside: melodies alone can proudly carry their own death within them like an internal necessity; only they don't exist. Every existent is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance. I leaned back and I closed my eyes. But pictures, promptly informed, sprang forward and filled my closed eyes with existences: existence is a repletion which man can never abandon." Jean-Paul Sartre
MUSIC:
1. Opposite Extreme of Compassion
Daniele Colombo - violin
A Certain Degree of Neurosis
2. Movement 1
3. Movement 2
4. Movement 3
5. Movement 4
Zeitgeist: Pat O’Keefe - bass clarinet, Patti Cudd - percussion
6. Essence
Derin Öge - piano, Cesare Papetti - drums
7. Melodies Alone Can Proudly Carry Their Own Death
Zentripetal Duo: Lynn Bechtold - violin, Jennifer DeVore - cello
8. Galileo Starry Messenger
Margaret Lancaster - flute, Michiyo Suzuki - clarinet, Matt Herskowitz - piano
9. She’s So Chaconne
Daniele Colombo - violin
10. Ineffably Still
Michiyo Suzuki - bass clarinet, Gene Pritsker - electric guitar
11. In Memory of Dave Gotay
Borislav Strulev - cello
