SKU: A0.596539

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/juan-maria-solare/ausente

Ausente (Abstent) is an atonal milonga. If Franz Liszt composed a Bagatelle without tonality, why not a milonga without tonality. This piece is placed somewhere between classical music and new tango.

Moderator Louis Barabbas wrote about Ausente for the BBC blog Fresh On The Net nr. 305 (19 November 2018), http://freshonthenet.co.uk/2018/11/faves305

Described as 'somewhere between classical music and new tango' the artist’s phrasing here is telling: somewhere rather than something. For in Juan Maria Solare’s Ausente (absent) we are certainly transported. Each angular phrase jutting up like stone columns or distended stalactites in a limey cave. The trickling thrust of its furtive intent feels somehow elemental yet focused through an urban noir prism, drops of heavy water in varying temperatures, some icicles and some steam, shards of smoky light poking around slow moving fan blades and between the rusty teeth of ancient window grills, monstrous warped shadows cast up from humble orphaned minutiae. Music as beautiful and unsettling as it is hard to dance to.

The idea of dancing this piece was a surprise for me, since tango music doesn't need to be danced to (you can also just listen to it). But if you wonder how this tango would appear danced, imagine it is not called tango but contemporary ballet rooted in tango - and suddenly you find ways of dancing it... provided an open-minded choreographer is on board! If someone wants to dance this music in the style of the tango of 1920, they will have a hard time. It would be like trying to dance Strawinsky's Le Sacre du printemps as if it were the Blue Danube Waltz.

Juan María Solare

http://www.JuanMariaSolare.com

SKU: A0.596553

Juan María Solare

From a Window

10 piano pieces

1 - Juan Has a New Piano                                        02:29

2 - Gazing                                                                   04:37

3 - Cross That Bridge When You Come to It     03:45

4 - Premonición                                                         03:26

5 - La tocaya                                                               03:33

6 - Seul, pendant un instant                                     04:25

7 - Predictions of the Velvet Gentleman                       04:39

8 - The Antarctic Also Exists                                   02:00

9 - An Old Cottage in Arun                                     02:26

10 - New Harry Pottery House                                       05:30

From a Window - Juan María Solare

The pieces of this piano album have been composed between 2011 to 2018. All of them belong to the aesthetic of neo-classical music, in some cases with a salt of tango flavour (clear in Premonición).

The fingerings in the scores are only suggestions - albeit meaningful ones. Be sure that they have been tested in practice. Those are the fingerings that I actually use.

Listen to this album in Spotify and similar streaming platforms:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3L4VfFsqSb4iax62Wl3FOd

https://juanmariasolare.bandcamp.com/album/from-a-window

All the pieces were performed by the composer, Juan María Solare, and recorded at the Studio Onix II, Cervelló / Barcelona, Spain, in January 2018.

Recording Engineer: Bruno Sanfilippo (brunosanfilippo.bandcamp.com)

Digital release: 8 March 2019, label Double J Music (Bristol, UK)

Physical release: label Janus Music & Sound (Bremen, Germany)

Artwork: Juan María Solare. Fractal image created with the JWildfire software designed by Andreas Maschke (jwildfire.org).

Trivia: Actually, this particular fractal image was what inspired the title of the album.

Stats: in the first month after its release (on 8 March 2019) the focus track, La tocaya, reached 90.000 streams on Spotify.

 ***

SKU: A0.596506

Juan María Solare:  Acuarelas junto al río inmóvil (Watercolours alongside the still river)

 five nocturnes for piano solo

The still river is the River Plate; the novelist Eduardo Mallea (1902-1982) refers to Buenos Aires as the city next to the still river, an allusion to its lack of haste.

This cycle of piano pieces is a collection of five short nocturnes. The first four Acuarelas were composed in Buenos Aires between 9th and 12th April 2007, the fifth piece was conceived on 4th May and written down on 6th May 2007. All five pieces have practically the same formal structure.

Concerning the musical language or style, I would classify this work under contemporary classical with interferences from modern jazz and new tango (imagine Astor Piazzolla listening to a recording of Thelonious Monk playing preludes of Alexander Scriabin).

Single titles and approximate durations

I - Bruma matinal  (Morning Mist) [1'10]

II - Flecha flotante  (Floating Arrow) [1'00]

III - Vaivén de los juncos  (Sawying Reeds) [1'15]

IV - Orilla urbana  (Urban Shore) [2'00]

V - Incandescencia estática  (Static Incandescence) [0'45]

ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code): T-802.466.008-1

The Acuarelas were recorded by Juan María Solare in London on Friday 23rd May 2014.

Recorded and Mixed by Eduard Muhaxheri

Assistant Engineer: Matteo Dessi

Grand piano Wendl & Lung

Cover Art: Alban Low

Label Janus Music & Sound (Bremen, Germany), JMS-004

More about the piece, also sound examples:

http://www.juanmariasolare.com/CD_acuarelas_junto_al_rio_inmovil.html

The recording of Acuarelas is on Spotify, Deezer, iTunes, amazon mp3, etc.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1kVamUJLLSqbQnFURSpxYA

Video of the fourth piece,Orilla urbana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usiEGpImyco

SKU: A0.596630

Juan María Solare: On the Concept of Limit (seven piano pieces)

In this work crystallises an idea that has been haunting me for some time: that the titles of the individual pieces should read like lines of a poem.

1) Up to a Certain Point

2) Nothing Gets Lost

3) Yet All Will Be Forgotten

4) At the End of the Day

5) Even the Sky Has a Limit

6) However, However

7) Only the Present Has No Limits

There is a fancy order of keys in this cycle: in ascending thirds (both major and minor but without a regularity). Indirectly, this is a structural quotation of Beethoven's variations Opus 34 (only that he chose a descending order of keys). Additionally, you will find three times 4/4 time signature and three times 3/4, and one instance of 5/8 (asymmetrically arranged).

1) C major (4/4)

2) E major (3/4)

3) G minor (4/4)

4) B major (4/4)

5) D minor (5/8)

6) F minor (3/4)

7) A major (3/4)

The seventh and last piece is dedicated to Martina Lindner.

These pieces were composed in Bremen, Germany, in September 2021

SKU: A0.596544

The German expression Zwischen den Jahren (literally Between the Years) refers to the last days of December (from Christmas) and the first days of January (up to Three King's Day). An English equivalent might be Boxing Week.

This piece is called this way because it was composed ... between the years! Concretely, on 31 December 2009 and 1 January 2010 in the small village of Worpswede, North Germany.

Musically, the piece is mostly based on major seventh chords with their fundamentals notes related by thirds. The harmony has also a Lydian flavor which becomes most obvious in the central section. Structurally, is roughly A-B-B-A, whereby the reappearance of a previous section is quite varied.

Premiere by the composer: recital Neue Konsonanz, 16 January 2014, Theatersaal of the university of Bremen.

Zwischen den Jahren is included in the composer's piano album Sombras blancas (White Shadows) and released through the German label Janus Music & Sound. Find it on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5ElRtKQhuaTyl8vKiyEyZv

Interested in the sheet music? Find it on Sheet Music Plus:

https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/publishers/juan-maria-solare-sheet-music/3003582?aff_id=565049

Here is a video (Images: water fountain in the Plaza de Cataluña, Barcelona.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzK7kq5COv0

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SKU: A0.596543

Glockenvogel (Bellbird), neoclassical music. A minimal, charming, peaceful piano piece that uses the Lydian mode.

Glockenvogel for piano solo was composed in December 2008 in Geneva (Switzerland). The piece is dedicated to María Luján Juárez.

Glockenvogel is the German name of the Procnias nudicollis, bare-throated Bellbird, a species of bid found in most subtropical and tropical forests in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.

Find a recording here: https://juanmariasolare.bandcamp.com/track/glockenvogel

On 22 February 2019 a studio recording by the composer was released digitally through the British label Ameritz (Mellotron) in Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, TIDAL and all other usual streaming platforms:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5CI48oVQWCKbOGuWS10qJC

Tidal: https://listen.tidal.com/album/103152736

Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/en/album/85669572

Premiere by the composer on 8th January 2019 at the University Bremen, Germany (recital Neue -und alte- Innigkeit)

Juan María Solare's music on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0sr00YxbHKRAruzYrJ6PEg