BMOP/sound
1009
March 2009
Disc 1: 64:27
  • Boston Modern Orchestra Project
  • Gil Rose, conductor

BMOP/sound's latest release, David Rakowski: Winged Contraption, is a compilation of three profound compositions by one of this generation's most visible American composers. Winged Contraption is Rakowski's playful and ebullient tribute to composer and friend Martin Boykan, and Persistent Memory provides a counterbalance with its reflective and melancholic tenor. The Piano Concerto, which draws upon the composer's own études, ushers forth teasing and surrealistic elements with the appearance of toy piano in each movement.

Buy recording

CD price: 16.99

Track listing

Disc 1 
 Persistent Memory (1996-97)
1.I. Elegy
2.II. Variations, Scherzo, and Variations
 Piano Concerto (2005-06)
3.I. Freely; Vivace
4.II. Adagio
5.III. Scherzando
6.IV. Poco andante, quasi adagietto, con gusty; Allegro; Candenza; Allegro
7.Winged Contraption (1991)
Download the album booklet

News and Press

[CD Review] Fanfare reviews David Rakowski: Winged Contraption

In her program notes pianist Marilyn Nonken observes that David Rakowski “asks us, as only a serious composer can, to come and play.” That instinctive urge, be it expressed in science, mathematics, or art, is often thought to underlie our species’ creativity. In music, a composer can transform whimsical, transitory, impulsive, or improvisatory materials into a “serious” work, or he can choose to inject humor via parody, quotation, or even rude noises.

Fanfare Full review
[CD Review] BMOP CD: Rakowski's serious fun

Composer David Rakowski’s jocularity is well known. His many piano etudes (88 at last count) feature a number of sly allusions to other styles and works, as well as more overt zaniness; one even requires the performer to play pitches with their nose! His previous concerti have featured various subterfuges in which the soloist is upstaged by the orchestra. And, famously, goofiness abounds on his website. But alongside Rakowski’s penchant for light-hearted expression are consummate craftsmanship and music of considerable poignancy.

Sequenza21 Full review
[CD Review] Gramophone reviews David Rakowski: Winged Contraption

There are marvelous ideas in David Rakowski’s music. At the very end of the slow movement of his Piano Concerto (2006), for instance, the soloist suddenly switches to a toy piano to play a flourish that’s at once otherworldly and mischievous. Similarly, the jazzy syncopations and riffs in the movement that follows convey simultaneous feelings of playful spontaneity and lurking menace.

Gramophone Full review
[News Coverage] Spinning Local: A batch of new CDs from BMOP

Meanwhile the city’s other homegrown label, BMOP/sound, continues to impress. This scrappy in-house operation run by conductor Gil Rose and his Boston Modern Orchestra Project was launched early last year, and it has released a steady stream of impeccably produced, beautifully packaged discs with exacting and engaged performances of 20th- and 21st-century music. Several elegantly probing pieces by Brandeis-based composer David Rakowski were recently featured on a BMOP/sound disc called Winged Contraption, including his Piano Concerto in a strong performance by Marilyn Nonken.

The Boston Globe Full review
[CD Review] American Record Guide reviews David Rakowski: Winged Contraption

Born in Vermont in 1958, David Rakowski is best known for his long series of witty, extravagant piano etudes. They have been often performed, and recordings of them have been praised by ARG’s reviewers: Bridge 9121 (July/Aug 2003), Albany 681 (Jan/Feb 2005), Bridge 9157 (Mar/Apr 2005). Rakowski has written much else, too, including three symphonies, five concertos, wind ensemble pieces, and chamber and vocal music.

American Record Guide Full review
[CD Review] Vital Weekly reviews for BMOP/sound

It remains a mystery why certain labels send their CDs to us. Like for instance BMOP/sound. It is a difficult job to cover these two of their new releases. They fall beyond the scope we usually cover. So I will be very descriptive only on these two. But first the label itself. It is the outlet of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. They perceive it as their mission to record important classical compositions of the 20th and 21st century. These two releases may illustrate this.

Vital Weekly Full review
[CD Review] NewMusicBox reviews David Rakowski: Winged Contraption

About a year and half ago, we did a NewMusicBox cover on David Rakowski, in preparation for which I studied his then 80 solo piano etudes and became a hardcore devotee. These quirky pieces are a rare breed—they’re pithy and some are even hysterically funny, no small feat to accomplish in the abstract, non-representational medium of music. As a result, pianists flock to them, and they are fast becoming staples of the contemporary solo piano repertoire. But all through our talk, David insisted that he’s more than “the piano etude guy”.

NewMusicBox Full review
[Press Release] BMOP/sound releases David Rakowski: Winged Contraption

BMOP/sound, the nation's foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to new music recordings, today announced the forthcoming album release of David Rakowski: Winged Contraption. Spanning 15 years of his musical career, Winged Contraption is a cornucopia of compositional treats that combines Rakowski's intellectual rigor, wit, and at times, pure silliness, while keeping its ears wide open to American music of all kinds.

Full review