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AudioOverviewThe MP3 files contained here are provided to allow
the many people who do not read music to listen to a broad selection of
Ornstein's music. This material has been gleaned from a wide variety of
sources. It varies greatly in the quality of both performance and sound
(volume may also vary), but it is generally adequate to enable the
listener to grasp the substance of the music. In a few cases, in order
to further illuminate the music, works are represented by more than one
performance. Musicians who perform Ornstein works, particularly works not
represented in this audio section, are requested to sumbit MP3 files for possible inclusion. Please email to Severo@Poonhill.com. Although much of this audio is unavailable elsewhere, those works indicated by * may be found (in different performances) on the commercial CDs listed in the discography section of this website. Scores for most of these works may also be found in the website's Scores section. There is no one-to-one correspondence between the audio items and items in the list of scores. Some of the scores are composites (sets of pieces such as the Waltzes, Flute Pieces, etc.) whereas the audio files are often (though not always) individual members of the set. Thus the Scores of the Waltzes are listed as S400, whereas the seventeen individual Waltzes are numbered S400 - S416. Note that identifying S numbers do not indicate chronological order in which works were composed. (See S-number categories in the Scores section of the website). Three of these audio selections involve Ornstein himself at the piano. The first of these is a recording that was made at the time he completed S155 Tarantelle. You can hear him hesitate as he struggles to remember just what he'd written. The other two are recordings of working (composing) sessions made many years ago on an ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder in Ornstein's tiny studio in New Hampshire where he worked on a bad upright piano. The sound quality is dreadful, but these samples are included to give some insight into the way he worked. They were made during a period in which he tried using a tape recorder to capture ideas. Not surprisingly, searching for a desired segment turned out to be too difficult as it became thoroughly lost among the welter of material that got laid down. Often the tape was simply allowed to run while he worked, then it would be backed up and more things recorded on top of earlier material. The result is a montage of snatches of music, but it gives some insight into his inspirational style of composing. Among other things, you can hear him working on the material that eventually turned into S102 A Long Remembered Sorrow. You can also hear other ideas that were never finished. There is a considerable quantity of such material stored in the sound archives at Yale University. Audio (MP3s)
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