Staubzucker – The Guitar Album
by composer Marios Joannou Elia
Release Date: 2015
Label: Aesthis Records
Buy or Listen on Amazon: Staubzucker
Stream on: Spotify
I’m delighted to share with you the new offering from composer Marios Joannou Elia. With a line-up of fantastic artists and instrumentation ranging from guitar, electric guitar, strings, to guitar quartet this album provides a wealth of ideas and soundscapes for the listener. I particularily love the guitar and electric guitar duo which I found so deliciously deceiving from a timbral and sonic standpoint. Take a look at the promo video below to hear some excerpts from the album. Also of interest, there is a significant essay titled Marios Joannou Elia’s Music for Guitar (quartet way down the page) by Dr Vera Grund, University of Salzburg.
Staubzucker by composer Marios Joannou Elia is an album filled with fascinating soundscapes and a wealth of compositional ideas. It explores the sounds and the endless possibilities of the guitar in chamber music making it a very significant contribution to the guitar repertoire.
Here’s some excerpts from the promotional text from the composer’s website, written by musicologist Dr Vera Grund from the University of Salzburg, who also wrote the liner notes of the album:
Staubzucker is an alluring recording of nine works by the composer Marios Joannou Elia – 55 minutes of music, composed between 1999 and 2008, which adds new dimensions to guitar repertoire. The recording is neither typical contemporary music nor is it a mainstream classical guitar album, but it offers a manifestation of the endless possibilities of the guitar…
Characteristically, the instrumentation of the guitar within a mixed ensemble offers fresh perspectives and ground-breaking approaches to the presentation of his musical ideas. In With a Pair of Scissors and a Thousand Threads for violin and guitar, the guitarist simultaneously performs on two guitars. Cursed, which is for a classical and an electric guitar, develops on a single note, in stark contrast with Staubzucker for guitar quartet, where he transforms the guitar quartet into a percussion ensemble through the imitation of 23 different percussion sounds played on guitar, together with the addition of vocal elements…
The music on this recording is performed by virtuoso musicians who over many years have worked extensively with the composer: Kostas Tosidis, a specialist in Elia’s music (guitar); Ronny Wiesauer (electric guitar); Georges-Emmanuel Schneider (violin); Chih-Hui Chang (violoncello); Yorgos Nousis and Kostas Tosidis (guitar duo); and the Miscelanea Guitar Quartet, whose concert repertoire consistently includes Elia’s works.
Read more about the album at: www.mjelia.com/new-album
Tracks
01. Ontologie Kubik
02. Soliloquy
03. Im Spiegel
04. Apophis
05. In Between I. Tragedy
06. II. Elegy
07. Cursed
08. With a Pair of Scissors and a Thousand Threads
09. Maneuver
10. Staubzucker
Video Link & Source: https://youtu.be/QA7819HHgyY
You might remember this video from a while back that posted of the Miscelanea Guitar Quartet performing Staubzucker
