Listen: Celan Fragments and Music for Small Ensemble

24th March 2016

This month the music of Matthew Aucoin can be heard all around New York City. On March 12th Aucoin's Piano Trio made its New York debut with the Gramercy Trio at Barge Music. His new song cycle Merrill Songs, performed by tenor Paul Appleby and Aucoin himself, received its world premiere at Zankel Hall on March 16th. On March 23rd and 24th, Aucoin conducts the sold-out New York premiere of his dramatic cantata, The Orphic Moment, in a fully staged production with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, soprano Kiera Duffy, violinist Keir GoGwilt, and the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra and Chorus, at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.

In celebration of these performances we invite you to listen to a selection of music for small ensembles composed by Aucoin and his contemporaries. The playlist includes Aucoin’s Celan Fragments for violin and piano, John Harbison's Twilight Music for horn, violin and piano, Kaija Saariaho's Cloud Trio for strings, and Nymphéa for strings and electronics, Henri Dutilleux's Sarabande et Cortège for bassoon and piano, and Sonata for Oboe and Piano, and finally, Niels Rosing-Schow's Ritus I for flute and percussion, as well as his Windgeboren for trumpet quartet.

"My favorite moment is just after the pencil touches the blank page when I'm starting a new piece. There's a sense that something pure and blank has been stained, and there's no turning back" — Matthew Aucoin

Watch on YouTube

Matthew Aucoin's Celan Fragments (2014)
‘Corona’ from Celan Fragments


‘Sprich auch du’ from Celan Fragments

Listen on Spotify

—This playlist was contributed by Liam Alves