New Video/Audio: Isaac ALBÉNIZ: Almería (Iberia II : II)

I hope that everyone is having meaningful experiences and experiencing pleasant meaning so far this year.
 

It is my pleasure to present an audio and video recording of much higher quality than I have been able to previously achieve.

The piece, Almería, is the second movement from the second suite of Iberia, the impressionistic masterwork of Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz.

This performance was recorded on the Stuart & Sons piano in Tempo Rubato, Brunswick, Victoria. The recording was made in late 2020; only recently did I finally pull myself together enough to produce and edit the audio and video. For the first time, I have published the video in Ultra High Definition, and really hope that this means something to some of you.

The timing was such that the production came shortly after the passing of my dear, musically-kindred friend and colleague, countertenor Max Riebl. I have dedicated this performance to his memory.

It is only due to the volunteerism of my dear, genius friends that I was able to do this; thanks be to the ladies at Tempo Rubato, Brunswick, to George E. Worthy Music, and to a stellar videographer who is remaining nameless for the time being.

The recording is also available on the following platforms:

Bandcamp
Soundcloud
YouTube

As always, these recordings can only improve with support, and you are welcome to feature in the credits of my next production by becoming a Patreon supporter here.

While on the topic of Patreon, I would like to inform you that I am running a commission tier through Patreon:

"Commission your own top-down piano music video with scrolling score, up to ten minutes long.
Your video will be featured on my YouTube channel.
At the introduction of the video, your name will appear as its benefactor."

As always, I thank you for your interest, and hope to be in touch again shortly with my next project.

Adam

New Video / Recording : Percy Grainger : Colonial Song

In 2021, as part of Albany’s Wind Power Festival, I was commissioned to perform the Colonial Song by Percy Grainger. I was previously unfamiliar with the work, and have thoroughly enjoyed learning it.

Those of you in the Great Southern may have heard me performing this piece at various concerts throughout the second half of the year. I needed to perform it several times in order to secure my interpretation.

I am very pleased to present this YouTube video, with a performance accompanied with the score, and various delicious bits of melody and counter-melody coloured in for fun and clarity.

It has been a genuine pleasure getting into the nuance of Grainger's language.

I have elected to use a sampled Bösendorfer 290, instead of the usual Bechstein D-280. EastWest cannot be thanked enough in their tireless work in sampling and reproduction - simply amazing.

New Video / Recording: J.S. Bach : Sechs Kleine Präludien, BWV 933-938

It is once again my pleasure to present a short suite of Bach Preludes in both audio and video form.

The Sechs Kleine Präludien below (edition: Bach-Busoni) appear to have been composed NOT to be performed, but rather as demonstrations of compositional technique - and may well have constituted part of the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

Nonetheless, they are compositions by Bach (elder) and as such are inherently sublime.

I hope that you enjoy my interpretation of these works. Please feel free to download the audio (pay-what-you-want) from my bandcamp.

Until next time!

New release - chippysthedoggy: Nobody's Eyes (feat. Coolio Desgracias)

chippysthedoggy has a brand new electronic release and the world has never heard anything like it.

It’s called Nobody’s Eyes and you can watch it play, or purchase it on bandcamp, or find it streaming absolutely everywhere.

Everything is in keeping with the first EP Canis Velpix (2018) aside for a couple of welcome upgrades - an even keener ear for detail, broader orchestral scope and insistence on tasteful polyphony. The boundary-pushing structure and genre-defying, tesseract palette are still very present.

Thank you for listening.

Adam / chippys

New arrangement/video/recording available: Billie Eilish / Finneas O'Connell - when the party's over, arr. for 8-part jazz vocal ensemble

Hello,

I am positively ecstatic about this latest piece of creative work stemming from my long-held and deep-as-the-ocean passion for jazz harmony, particularly when combined with the human voice and meaningful text.

I envisioned a setting of when the party’s over such as this as soon as I heard the song for the first time, and knew that with no little effort, such a thing would be possible. It took a few weeks of thinking in the car, on walks in the middle of the night, and 5am waking dreams, before the setting took a more-or-less concrete shape in my mind and I finally sat down at my out-of-tune piano and sketched a bunch of eight-note chords, later to set the thing to parts using my favourite software Dorico 2.

Please enjoy the rub - and share the joy that I hope you feel with friends through the various social media links that YouTube provides. Among the dreams I have around this piece is the one where Billie and Finneas themselves stumble upon my arrangement and go ‘mmm’.

The recording can be heard on soundcloud here, and taken with you on bandcamp here. Please consider following me on both of these platforms, and/or subscribing on YouTube itself. If like me, you prefer email, sign up to my newsletter here.

This recording was the result of a professional association and many profound personal thanks are due to every contributing member of the Westbourne Grammar School Senior Concert Choir, and the surrounding team of staff. I wish nothing but the best for every single one of these outstanding souls.

NEW VIDEO: ISAAC ALBÉNIZ - RONDEÑA

It is my pleasure to present my second recording piece from Isaac Albéniz' Iberia, the 'impressionistic' masterwork for piano, and "the greatest Spanish work in the last hundred years" (Marín).

This movement is called Rondeña, and is the first piece from Volume II of Iberia (you may recall that I have recorded the third movement from this volume, Triana).

Wikipedia provides a concise description of the piece:
Rondeña (D major), after the Andalusian town of Ronda. A variant of the fandango, it is characterized by the alternation of measures of 6/8 and 3/4.

I hope that you enjoy the balance of colour and lively/reflective character within this piece.

As always, the audio recording for this piece will be available on my bandcamp page, for which you may name your price when downloading, or simply stream/download the audio for free, at your leisure.

For more like this, and to help out in the production of these videos which I undertake in my spare time, please consider becoming a patron.

Thanks and all the best,

Adam

NEW RECORDING: MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937): SONATINE POUR LE PIANO, OP.

I present this latest recording of Ravel's masterpiece in miniature, and the pianistic precursor to the groundbreakingly poetic Miroirs: The Sonatine of 1905, in three movements.
This piece was recorded and produced by myself from my humble home studio. It has been a pleasure to make.

Meredith Gailey at allmusic writes:

Representative of his first formative period, the work is bright and clear, and only gently touches the listener's emotions. Using fluidity, light coloring, and the intervals of the fourth and fifth as unifying features, the work is written using primarily the three middle octaves of the piano. Ravel was known for his tightly written pieces and Sonatine was no exception; it easily reminds one of the refined objets d'art of the eighteenth century.

You will be able to download freely, or purchase, the audio recording from my bandcamp.

For more like this, and to help out in the production of these videos which I undertake in my spare time, please consider becoming a patron.

Thanks and all the best,

Adam

NEW VIDEO: NIKOLAI KAPUSTIN: PRELUDE & FUGUE OP. 82 NO. 4 IN C-SHARP MINOR

This video is a re-upload of the popular recording I made of Nikolai Kapustin’s masterful half-classical, half-jazz, all-polyphony Op. 82 set of Preludes & Fugues published in 1997.

The initial video was a scrolling score, which was in breach of the copyright on the work, and subsequently taken down.

This re-upload took me a little while; it is a representation of the colours that I experience while playing and hearing the work. I hope that you find the extra ‘layer’ to this already exciting piece enjoyable.

Please access the audio recording on bandcamp here; and on soundcloud here.

NEW VIDEO: ISAAC ALBÉNIZ: TRIANA (IBERIA II:III)

It is my pleasure to present this latest recording of Albéniz' impressionistic masterpiece, recorded by the kind and talented folks at AdAudio in Brighton.

It was once said of Albéniz' immensely beautiful, nuanced and intimidating Suite Iberia: "There is really nothing in Isaac Albeniz's ''Iberia'' that a good three-handed pianist could not master, given unlimited years of practice and permission to play at half tempo." Obvious (yet occasional) technical shortcomings aside, I am pleased with the colorations and corners of this ultimately poetic work, and I hope that it provides some comfort to every listener in these strange and uncertain times.

For more like this, and to help me out, please consider subscribing to my newsletter and/or becoming a patron.

NEW LIVE RECORDING (AUDIO/VIDEO): CÉSAR FRANCK: SONATE POUR VIOLON ET PIANO EN LA MAJEUR, FWV 8: BERNADETTE BAKER, VIOLIN

Another Tempo Rubato performance, another great evening, and another recording to show for it. Many thanks to Bernadette Baker for her all-around excellence and commitment to putting this work together.

This was recorded live at Tempo on Fri 7th Feb - it is an unedited, continuous recording of the complete Sonata.

I am particularly interested in the idea of reinvigorating ‘messy music’ as discussed during one of Tyler Cowen’s recent podcasts. This performance being my first example of such: missed notes, wrong notes, applause between movements - the real experience of a first live performance as opposed to a micro-edited studio recording.

I hope you enjoy the recording, and please remember to subscribe to my channel and/or newsletter to keep abreast of where I will be and what I am doing.

NEW RECORDING (AUDIO/VIDEO): DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH: PRELUDE & FUGUE OP. 87 NO. 12 IN G# MINOR

Following a successful performance at Melbourne’s exciting new venue Tempo Rubato, I went into the AdAudio recording studio in Brighton and documented my interpretation of Shostakovich’s checkpoint Op. 87 work.

Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 are celebrated among the body of 21st-century polyphonic work as a vibrant and bold testament to the ultimate work of J.S. Bach, Das Wohltemperierte Clavier. Shostakovich was inspired to undertake this mammoth act of composition having visited Leipzig in 1950 for The International Bach Competition, marking the bicentennial of Bach's death.
This is where Shostakovich came to hear the Russian pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva, who carried away the Gold Medal from the Competition. What followed was a composition flurry from the very impressed Shostakovich. He completed his own cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues within the space of six months!

This Prelude and Fugue in G# minor stands structurally within the cycle as the halfway point, and it may be for this reason that it adopts a relatively outstanding set of characteristics.
The Prelude operates upon a recurring Passacaglia, a grave and obstinate 3/4 bass figure upon which a broad, notably Slavic melodic framework is gradually and masterfully built over the course of several variations.
The Fugue is a thoroughly eccentric affair, in four parts, marked Allegro and marcatissimo, and maintaining an obviously jazz-influenced 5/4 metric throughout. The 'recapitulation' with its sudden change in colour and subtle shift in modality allows the driven nature of the piece to gradually and tastefully settle into a tierce de Picardie, a final Bach-inspired touch.

NEW UPLOAD: FRANCOIS COUPERIN: LES BARICADES MISTERIEUSES

I have recorded my current interpretation of Couperin’s enigmatic Baricades. (This changes with the tides, and is effectively different every time it is performed.) I believe that the piece may have been intended as (among other things) a sort of étude in lyricism and gentle rubato, as manifest on a contemporaneous instrument lacking touch-sensitivity. Through experimentation I have been led to believe that the piece’s compositional intent is enriched by the player’s ability to gently voice and prioritise certain lyrical fragments found within its structure. (I originally intended to highlight these on the score that accompanies the work, but later decided to leave this alone, not wanting to coerce the listener’s reception.)

Les baricades mistérieuses comes with its own mythology, which you may begin to delve into through its own Wikipedia page, as well as this article.

My goal with this short project was to present an interpretation which succeeded in discovering, but never exceeding, the various expressive limits contained within the piece’s celebrated microcosm. I hope, at the very least, that you are haunted - if not by the interpretation, then at least by the composition itself, and perhaps also the sense of the occult that has grown around it.

TWO NEW RECORDS WITH MAXIMILIAN RIEBL - ES KÜMMERT MICH NICHT; SKYFALL

One of the world’s great countertenors - and my good friend - Max Riebl and I have teamed up quite a bit this year and in the course of our work together, Max has created a couple of fantastic voice/piano EPs with muggins at the keyboard.

Recorded in two sessions at Move Records in Eaglemont, VIC, es kümmert mich nicht (subtitled BWV 2018) and Skyfall (BWV 2018: Part 2) are as below:

MORE WORK WITH MAX RIEBL; VIDEOS

Countertenor Max Riebl and I have been working hard, and here are the videos to prove it.

These have been produced with the assistance of Chapel off Chapel, and by Robert and Sean at Sweet Baritone.

The two EPs that Max and I have made together, es kümmert mich nicht and Skyfall, are available here.

(You can also stream them here.) (and here.)

I’ve included the rest of our filmed material on a playlist, just in case you like the new stuff and want to hear more.

CHIPPYSTHEDOGGY: CANIS VELPIX EP (DÉBUT RELEASE)

My rather apocryphal, time-travelled alter-ego has spent about four years developing advanced skills in an obscure bit of Japanese freeware created by genius among men Daisuke Amaya (Pixel).

The software is called pxtone. Read about it here - download it here (not for the faint-of-mouse).

The EP is called the Canis Velpix EP. It is available on chippys’ bandcamp page; in the main menu of this website; by googling ‘canis velpix’; and many other ways that I won’t list here as I’ve just given you three and it’s late.

If it turns out you like chippys enough to declare it undyingly and unashamedly on faïcebouque, it’s here. He also has this birdy thing and this boxy thing that he never uses, but has been told to create. Go spare. Soundcloud is always nice, follow there first.

This music is a thorough departure from anything I have heard before: perhaps some of you are able to get in touch with suggestions of similar-sounding music?

Most of all, I hope you enjoy it. It took me years to make, but don’t stress - this oughtn’t be a reflection on your recognition of its inherently superior quality.

It contains the kind of adult references that you might not expect to find on my ordinarily polite website - so do go careful if you happen to be allergic.

Love, Adam (and chippysthedoggy)

ADAM JAMES COOK - Live in Albany

Hi everyone,

My little homemade record called 'Live in Albany' and featuring the artwork of Dog Rock, as well as the music of J.S. Bach, is now available for free on bandcamp! Don't be fooled by expensive imitations.

Feel free to download it / stream it as you see fit.