Helps: Shall We Dance / Piano Quartet / Postlude / Nocturne

Featuring

Robert Helps
Janine Jansen
Hartmut Rohde
Frank S. Dodge
Daniel Blumenthal
Ron Schaaper

Quinten de Roos
Ronald Cabrone
Spectrum Concerts Berlin
John Ireland

Did you know?

1/7

Recording & Production

Spectrum Concerts Berlin, founded by cellist Frank S. Dodge, is committed to introducing contemporary American chamber music to Germany.

Composer Biography

Robert Helps' orchestral piece Adagio for Orchestra, which became the middle movement of his Symphony No. 1, won a Fromm Foundation award and was premiered by Leopold Stokowski.

Performer Biography

Janine Jansen, a violinist on this album, was described by Berlin critics as one of the world's finest violinists after her 2002 recital in the Spectrum Concerts Berlin series.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Robert Helps believed that long musical pieces, like novels, deal with 'emotions' and 'rhythm' without the 'encumbrance of words' or a 'plot'.

Instruments

Janine Jansen performs on an outstanding instrument, the 'Barrere' Antonio Stradivarius, Cremona, 1727, on extended loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago and the Elise Mathilde Fund.

Composer Biography

Robert Helps was a recipient of numerous awards in composition from foundations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim, and Ford, and received a 1976 Academy Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters.

Composer Biography

Robert Helps, the composer, was a professor of music at several institutions, including the University of South Florida, Tampa, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.