Paganini-Segreto 1823 (Bruck-Wurlitzer MS) FIRST RECORDING Peter Sheppard Skaerved-(Stradivari 1699) (Engineer Jonathan Haskell) In October 1823, Paganini sent Germi his ‘segreto A’. This was his ‘sketch’ documenting the execution of complex harmonics for a single violinist. (The Bruck Wurlitzer MS). He was famous for implying that there was a ‘magic’ formula for his playing, although [...]
January 16, 2010
In 2006 I met the strikingly gifted and alarmingly young composer and improviser, Liburn Jupolli, in Kosova. We worked together in considerable detail on his interest in sounds which were on the edge of appearing and disappearing. This led to his Eta Carinae, written the following year, and heard that winter in a concert in London. [...]
January 15, 2010
Antoine Reicha Overture ‘Sappho’ (arr. A. Reicha) Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Aaron Shorr-Piano 2004 Also: Reicha-Duos, Duo Concertant The most influential musician in post-Revolutionary Paris was the Bohemian-born Antoine Reicha (1770-1836), Beethoven’s exact contemporary and close friend. As teenagers, the two had been colleagues in the Bonn Electoral Orchestra, co-conspirators in the forging of [...]
January 13, 2010
Beethoven and Josef Mayseder Joseph Mayseder- E Flat Major ‘Konzertirend Sonate’ AllegroMoltoAdagioRondo Allegro Ludwig van Beethoven-A major Sonata Op 47 (Kreutzer/Bridgetower) Adagio Sostenuto/PrestoAndante con variazionePrestoPresto Peter Sheppard Skaerved-Violin (Stradivari 1734-’Habeneck), Aaron Shorr-Piano “Monday the 16th May (1803)…in the evening with Kuhnel and Tomasini in the Wieden Theatre. Lodoiska by Cherubini…there I met for the first [...]
January 13, 2010
I first heard Rochberg’s Violin Concerto when I was a ten year old, in the classic Stern recording. From the first outburst from Stern’s fiddle, the ‘great barbaric yawp’ which begins the concerto, I was transfixed, and terrified. It suddenly dawned on me that I had absolutely no idea what went on in the world [...]
January 13, 2010
Nigel Clarke Pernambuco Live performance: Pharos Contemporary Music Festival. Nikosia. 2009 Peter Sheppard Skaerved-Violin (Hill 1900) In 1993, Nigel Clarke and I were working on the sketches for Pernambuco. The piece had grown from the initial blank page with which he had confronted me, and we were ‘test-driving’ various ways of using [...]
January 13, 2010
Dmitri Smirnov-Amore Sola 2006 Live Performance in the Enlightenment Gallery 2010 Dmitri Smirnov-Partita 1985 Peter Sheppard-Maurin Stradivarius 1714 (recorded 1995) Peter has collaborated with Dmitri Smirnov since 1994. This has resulted in a number of premieres and recordings. Initially, the work forcused on Smirnov’s earlier works-Partita and Two Fugues. Since then Smirnov has written Peter [...]
January 11, 2010
January 11, 2010
Gobi Desert near Turfan. 2002. Playing Peter Sculthorpe’s-Alone In the Gobi Desert Listen: Peter Sculthorpe-Serenade (For David Matthews and Jenifer Wakelyn) Peter Sculthorpe-Alone (live in Nashville 2009)
January 9, 2010
Beethoven-Scherzo from the Eroica Symphony(Arr. possibly by Franz Clement)-Rehearsal recording Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Dov Scheindlin, Neil Heyde, Aaron Shorr St John’s Smith Square Recording courtesy Jonathan Haskell (Astounding Sounds) Allegro con brioMarcia funebreScherzo (Allegro Vivace)Finale(Allegro Molto)
January 16, 2010