| Summersong
for 23 wind instruments |
"beautiful
music and beautifully crafted, with many ravishing
moments"
--Gunther Schuller |
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| Serenade
for seven players |
"an attractive
essay in deliberately paced, floating sonorities...
lyrical and elegiac, full of grateful writing
for various instrumental combinations"
-- John Rockwell, The New York Times |
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| Scattering
dark and bright -- duo for piano and percussion |
"a lushly
attractive and vital work, with long lines
of melody that sweep through rippling textures"
-- Andrew Porter, The New Yorker |
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| Quintet
for violin, cello, flute, clarinet and piano |
"David Chaitkin's
Quintet is quite simply a revelation. Here
at last is a composer who has succeeded in
synthesizing a contemporary musical language
which is more than vital, pleasing, and exciting.
I must invoke the word beautiful. He owes
something to the minimalists, but the Quintet
has harmonic adventure which is absent from
so much of the minimalist music we hear today.
Contrapuntal and rhythmic interest are also
present, but the overall effect is far beyond
the sum of these well-crafted components.
If Chaitkin is able to continue writing music
of this quality, he will be able to guide
us into the musical future."
-- Strings Magazine |
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| Etudes
for Piano |
"une imagination
superbe"
-- Ostinato, Paris |
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| Seasons
Such as These for six-part chorus, a cappella |
“went beyond
mere musical virtuosity and into the realms
of clarity of seeing and compassion of feeling
that are in Shakespeare's language...many-layered
luminous sheets of sound...one could peer
through the veils, illuminating, obscuring,
and protecting, and discern the truth."
-- Richard Dyer, Boston Globe |
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| CRI
CD 749: |
...first impressions
of Chaitkin’s music dwell on abundance
of allure...further hearings reveal it to
reside within remarkably sturdy yet self-effacing
architecture... The disc’s most recent
work, Summersong... is in a sense the most
impressive, in that Chaitkin writes in so
seamlessly sylvan a manner for so large a
force. As a personal thing, I am predisposed
to avoid music for winds, and here I cannot:
Summersong’s charms are too much in
evidence. Not, of course, to minimize strengths,
among which I include by inference an eloquent
argument for art music’s freedom to
look where it will for sustenance...
--M. Silverton, FANFARE, Sept./Oct. 1997 |
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| CRI
CD 749: |
Chaitkin’s
Serenade (is) a quiet, lovely work of almost
pre-Raphaelite beauty....
Summersong...seamless, dreamy, voluptuous...long
melodic lines intermingle in tranquil polyphony
and exquisite, ever-varied timbral permutations...there’s
some very beautiful music here. David Chaitkin
has a sensitivity and depth of feeling that
-- in his Serenade and Summersong, in particular--will
bring great pleasure to willing ears.
--M. L. Lehman, American Record Guide, Sept./Oct.
1997 |
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| Impromptu;
Prelude and Dance (from Three Dances) for
piano solo: |
Chaitkin makes
brilliant use of a diverse musical palette
in his compositions. A lyric style infuses
much of his impromptu. Dedicated to the memory
of Frederic Ewen, this beautiful tribute falls
into three sections, each imbued with a subtle
improvisatory spirit...The technical demands
of Chaitkin’s impromptu include a poetically
gentle virtuosity...The character of the dance
arises from its rhythmic vitality, the crispness
of articulations, and the clever distribution
of material across the keyboard.
--W.T. Spiller, NOTES, December 1998
Mr. Oldfather was excellent again when he
had the chance to shine alone, in beautiful
and wistful pieces
by David Chaitkin.
--Paul Griffiths, New York Times, Sept. 17,
2001
Note:
Impromptu, published by C.F. Peters, is subject
of an article by Brian Robison in the
French music journal Ostinato-Rigore, Number
23 |
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