Classical Music - Persona Digital Studio

Classical music began as entertainment for rich aristocrats and a showcase feature of rich churches who could afford to support composers and musicians as full time employees. In the smaller venues of entertainment rooms in the homes of the wealthy, small chamber ensembles played pieces composed specifically for those audiences. Some pieces were for listening, others for dancing, and others as background music, part of the décor. Virtuoso performers played pieces designed to impress audiences with their technical skills.

Some of the great composers were also skilled performers who improvised in these small gatherings and competed with each other. Mozart was a childhood virtuoso and talented improviser who travelled Europe with his father and sister, impressing audiences.
Beethoven took advantage of improvements in instrument construction that allowed players to develop more virtuoso techniques. Beethoven is credited with the kind of progression of musical innovation that we recognize in the evolution of jazz in the 20th century. Stravinsky referred to his last quartets, as "this absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever." Among Beethoven’s innovations are complex syncopations and cross-rhythms; synchronized runs of sixteenth, thirty-second, and sixty-fourth notes; and sudden modulations requiring special attention to intonation.”

The Persona Classical Series focuses on the music of JS Bach and Amadeus Mozart. Stephen Gislason selects and arranges pieces that are then developed in the studio using synthesizer voices and multitrack recording. In previous years, some of Bach’s pieces became contemporary hits: for example, by the Swingle Singers' (Air on the G string, Wachet Auf chorale prelude) and Wendy Carlos' 1968 album, Switched-On Bach, created with a Moog synthesizer. Stephen recalls " I enjoyed the Carlos arrangements and was inspired to learn about synthesizers. The distinct timbres of the Moog synthesizer voices made the four voices in preludes and fugues stand out clearly. I have edited and rearranged Bach's pieces with new voicing, new intonations seeking the clarity of voice definition I heard in "Switched on Bach." I like to imagine the if Bach were alive, he would enjoy this novel play on his musical ideas."

Digital Bach for the 21St Century

Art of the Fugue

 Counterpoint for Genius