Phlippe Callens released a second CD with music for his own English country dance work. Seasons of Invention is again a collaboration between the bands A Joyful Noise (Daniel Beerbohm, Barbara Greenberg, and Kathy Talvitie), Hold The Mustard (all of the above plus Paul Prestopino), and Philippe Callens.
The CD comprises fifteen English country dances of mine all but one previously unpublished. Twelve of them are modern dances written between 2002 and 2010:
- The Pharmacist’s Pleasure
- Spring in Sebastopol (remembering the 2004 Mad Robin Ball in California)
- The Marple Bridge Rose (to a Jonathan Jensen tune)
- Summer in Morland
- Noisette (for Hazel Moir)
- Somerset Square (bought at an online auction by Michael Barraclough, now of DC)
- Winter in Brasstown (remembering Winter Dance Week 2004)
- Simone’s Semicentury
- The Merry Musicologist (for Carol Marsh)
- Mr. Stapledon’s New Hornpipe
- The New Attic
- Autumn in Amherst (tune by Kathy Talvitie, pianist with the above bands)
The remaining three are my reconstructions of dances first published in London at the beginning of the eighteenth century:
- Manage the Miser (Walsh, 1706)
- The Busie Body (Essex, 1710)
- A Trip to Blenheim (Walsh, 1713)
All the dances are recorded at dance length and tempo. The varied instrumentation and the beautiful arrangements make it a great listening CD, too.
