by Arkady Shilkloper
The album, New Hornology, is a continuation of my solo works, recorded using the overdubbing method. Previous albums, Hornology (1998), Pilatus (2000), and Zum Gipfel und Zurück: Neue Alphornmusik (2006), all received rave reviews from fans, journalists, and friends, and especially from fellow horn and alphorn players.
The concept for all the albums is the same: to share my own stories with the listeners, and to show the range of timbral, technical, harmonic, aesthetic, and other capabilities of the instruments, including horn, alphorn, kuhlohorn, etc.
All compositions and arrangements are my own, but in the last piece, "Tale for Alexandra” (dedicated to my daughter), at the request of the producer, a string quartet was added to the version from the original Hornology album. The arrangement was made by Ksenia Akimkina. The result is something that can be defined as “a fresh breath of tradition,” the old composition having acquired new colors.
The stylistic spectrum of the new album is quite broad. There is a memory of the river and the German city of Wuppertal in Nordrhein-Westfalen, where I first lived when I emigrated to Germany (as a "Wupper"), and also a "Chorale" dedicated to the memory of our outstanding colleague Hermann Baumann, of whom I once asked a bit shyly, “Dear Hermann, have you listened to my album Hornology, which I presented to you at the last IHS Symposium?” To this, Hermann, with his characteristic emotionality and liveliness, replied, “Arkady, I have your album loaded in my car! I listen to it regularly when I’m traveling somewhere.” It was very flattering to receive this compliment from such a great hornist.
The album also contains a nod to the Balkan “Take Seven” (a musical allusion to the famous jazz standard “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck), the traditional Alpine “Edelweiss,” a solo version of my old hit “Cobra,” and a completely new composition, “Blues on Seven.”
I hope that this new album will be positively received by my colleagues around the world, and that it will open new horizons in understanding how universal, amazing, wonderful, unique, irreplaceable, etc. our instrument is.
