QuietMelodies is now open!

As many of you might already know, the new portal is finally open!!!!!  I am so sorry that it has taken so long to happen, but I do hope you find it worth the wait.  Some of the new features you will be able to enjoy are being able to message any member & being able to post your own favorites.  There will also be a forum added so that requests and such can be made there.  Eventually hope to in essence mirror this blog there and of course have new content available.  The new music available should be substantially more than here as there will be multiple people posting =-).  Please stop by and join your NEW home for QuietMusic – www.quietmelodies.com!

Michael Hoppe – The Unforgetting Heart

Michael Hoppe – The Unforgetting Heart
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 1:27:24 min | 221 MB | 1998 | 10% Recovery Record

Michael Hoppe’s gentle melodies are served well by the inspired interplay of piano, viola, and flute (Tim Wheater, in a starring role). The songs flow sweetly and playfully, like butterflies reconnoitering a spring garden, alighting momentarily on leaves, and then dispersing. Two versions of the title song bookend the album–the first played by the trio and the last a haunting solo piano turn by the composer.

Michael Hoppé – Wind Songs

Michael Hoppé – Wind Songs
MP3 @ 192 Kbps | 41:30 min | 61.9 MB | 2001 | 10% Recovery Record

Beautiful and evocative ethnic flute music, including the native American Indian flute performed both solo and with subtle keyboard enhancements.55 tracks in total varying in length from 12 seconds to over 5 minutes. A must for all Tim Wheater fans!

Michael Hoppe – The Dreamer (Romances for Alto flute Vol. 2)

Michael Hoppe – The Dreamer (Romances for Alto flute Vol. 2)
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 50:13 min | 125 MB | 1997 | 10% Recovery Record

The soft music on “Alto Flute Romances” is composed with a slow tempo to take advantage of the wind-in-a-cave sound of the flute. Perfect for slowing down, relaxing, calming oneself, or playing as a lullaby. Some of the pieces sound a bit alike, but they are all in a similar tempo which adds to the relaxation effect. The “Lavender Shadows” is my favorite on the entire CD. Very nice.

Michael Hoppé – The Yearning (Romances For Alto Flute)

Michael Hoppé – The Yearning (Romances For Alto Flute)
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 51:39 min | 127 MB | 1996 | 10% Recovery Record

The work of his grandfather, famed celebrity photographer E.O. Hoppe, inspired alto flute player Michael Hoppe’s The Yearning, a collection of romantic compositions…

Michael Hoppe – Solace

Michael Hoppe – Solace
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 51:18 min | 127 MB | 2003 | 10% Recovery Record

“Solace” is the music of timeless Love, it is the song of immortal Heart… These healing harmonies of Michael Hoppe.. Showcasing 12 of award-winning composer and pianist Michael Hoppé’s reflective, healing compositions, Solace takes his work to another level by adding full symphonic accompaniment from the Prague Symphony Orchestra. Includes a special bonus, a Hoppé composition performed by the legendary Vangelis.. “Solace” was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album..

Michael Hoppe – Requiem

Michael Hoppe – Requiem
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 42:07 min | 105 MB | 2006 | 10% Recovery Record

Michael Hoppe is a Grammy award nominated composer of exceptional melodic talents. His music has been heard internationally and on numerous programs ranging from HBO’s The Sopranos to The Oprah Winfrey Show. Hoppe has also scored feature films including Misunderstood and the multi-award winning and Oscar nominated short, Eyes of the Wind. His 2003 release, Solace, was a Grammy nominee in the Best New Age category and has sold more than 100,000 records worldwide. His new release Requiem features soprano Heidi Fielding and tenor Dwain Briggs.

Michael Hoppe – How Do I Love Thee

Michael Hoppe – How Do I Love Thee
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 49:20 min | 125 MB | 2006 | 10% Recovery Record

“How Do I Love Thee? The World’s Most Beautiful Love Poems” is a delightful collaboration by British actor Michael York, who soulfully reads a collection of twenty – two classic poems about love, and composer Michael Hoppe, who soulfully provides the music that plays behind the poems and also appears as interludes scattered throughout the CD, allowing quiet moments to reflect.. The selection of poems is fascinating, dealing with romantic love, but also telling of mature love and marriage, loss, and desire. Hoppe’s selection of original music is perfect for the chosen poems and interludes, wordlessly conveying passion and deep emotion..

Michael Hoppe & Tim Wheater – Afterglow

Michael Hoppe & Tim Wheater – Afterglow
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 46:38 min | 115 MB | 1999 | 10% Recovery Record

Under the skilled and intuitive guidance of musician and composer Michael Hoppe on keyboards, Afterglow is a collaborative effort of deep sensual beauty and full-figured elegance. With such improvisational songs as “Shadows Fall,” the driving pulse of Martin Tillman’s cello intensifies the mindful meandering of flutist Tim Wheater’s rounded tones. And on the bittersweet “A Thousand Whispers,” Tillman’s strings take on a boldly brooding neoclassicism bearing out the project’s premise to have “deeply felt performances” supercede all other motives. Elsewhere, as on “The Listening Wind,” Wheater’s melodies float, quiver, and reverberate a pattern of primitive lines in contrast to Tillman’s innovative, plucky tick-tock. Built solely on the nonwritten structures set by Hoppe, the emotionally rich and relaxing Afterglow is the spontaneous, supple, and spirited union of three of the most masterful soloists of instrumental music.

Michael Hoppe – The Poet (Romances For Cello)

Michael Hoppe – The Poet (Romances For Cello)
MP3 @ 192 Kbps | 32:33 min | 59.8 MB | 1997 | 10% Recovery Record

This multi-media album mixes music with poetry and classic photographic portraits of the poets. The connection comes through composer Michael Hoppe, who had recently rediscovered the 5,000 image collection of his grandfather, famed portrait photographer E.O. Hoppe (1878-1972). Each of the eleven pieces for solo cello (performed by Swiss cellist Martin Tillman) was inspired by a separate poem; the liner notes match poem to portrait. Hoppe’s compositions are classically romantic, the essence of a Schumann or Brahms, but without their churning storminess. Although the cello has a wide range, and can even growl when the occasion warrants, Hoppe does not lead the cello to those non-sonorous places; when people say they love the cello, it is this voice, this range, this romance, this timbre that they love. Most romantic concertos have dramatic and bombastic sections, a test of dexterity to be sure, but most listeners really cherish the tender passages of redemption, love, or purity. The orch…estra hushes and the cello cries tender tears. Hoppe offers a whole album of just those moments. Tillman plays with extreme warmth and sensitivity; Hoppe’s piano and string chamber ensemble arrangements on the keyboard present the cello like the a blue robin’s egg in the nest. Hoppe says that the pieces were fully rehearsed and played live in the studio, all the way through with no overdubbing; the album has that immediacy and integrity. Of course, each poem has its own ambience. “Some Other Time” (Carl Sandberg/”The Great Hunt”) expresses an achingly simple longing. “Moon Ghosts” (Aldous Huxley/”A Sunset”) offers a heartbreaking theme where the lonely poet rekindles a moment of desire. “Diamonds of Rain” (Edward Thomas/”It Rains”) also broods over lost romance. Hoppe’s Robert Frost poem “A Minor Bird” has the country simplicity of an Aaron Copland composition. The most rhapsodic piece (“Riddles”) is based on the shortest poem, a drowned-in-love conundrum titled “Juliet” by Hilaire Belloc. Other poets represented include Kahil Gibran, A.E. Houseman, Alice Meynell, Sara Teasdale, G.K. Chesterton, and Walter de la Mare. I put on the album for a friend who folded in a flood of tears by track two. She commented that this was the sort of album one would listen to over and over again and cry the whole day. I agree. Two other albums complete the Hoppe photography set: The Yearning and The Dreamer (due to be released by Teldec in the fall of ’97), both with flautist Tim Wheater.

Michael Hoppe – Simple Pleasures

Michael Hoppe – Simple Pleasures
MP3 @ 224 Kbps VBR | 45:43 min | 67.1 MB | 1998 | 10% Recovery Record

Michael Hoppe is comfortable composing in many popular and romantic musical styles. Simple Pleasures is a bouquet of Hoppe styles, from the ballroom fox-trot on “Roses on Toast” to the bittersweet lullaby of “The Children’s Waltz” to the rhapsodic “Silver Screen Romance,” featuring violinist James Sitterly. “Lincoln’s Lament,” like a simple country hymn, is based on a letter of sympathy the president wrote to a Mrs. Bixby, who lost five sons in the war. Hoppe wrote a description of each piece, and every one matches the music’s mood perfectly. “Moonlight Bossa,” I thought, sounds like music written for European films from the ’60s; exactly, he writes. Hoppe plays piano throughout, backed by keyboard strings, percussion, and breathy voices. The trapset sounded too automatic on a few of the pop cuts; the album’s show-stoppers are the lush and wistful romantic pieces: “Through the Window,” “Silver Screen Romance,” “October,” “Homeland Theme,” “The Parting” (recorded by many other artists), and the sad and inky “Elegy.” Movie producers should be lining up to use these themes. Joining Hoppe and Sitterly is Tim Wheater on flute. Many of these pieces can be found in other arrangements on Hoppe’s album Homeland.

Michael Hoppe – Quiet Storms

Michael Hoppe – Quiet Storms
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 47:32 min | 121 MB | 2001 | 10% Recovery Record

Composer Michael Hoppe usually plays piano and keyboard on his recordings; on Quiet Storms: Romances for Flute and Harp, he turns the performing duties over to harpist Lou Anne Neill and flautist Louise Di Tullio. The flute and harp are relatively quiet, so you may be tempted to put the album on for background music. Don’t be surprised if the music suddenly carries you away through buried emotions to distant thoughts. Hoppe knows how to craft a moving melody, and he takes you there in style. “Quiet Storms,” “Andrew’s Theme” (from Misunderstood), the somber “October Poem,” “Waltz for Raphael,” and “Nocturne” are romantic, yet gripping. There are lighter contrasts: “Sand Castles” has a carefree, windblown touch with a cadence exactly like patting down sand; “Petite Giselle” springs through meadows buoyantly; “Avalon” is mysterious, and “Pieces of the Moon” is dreamy. Soft environmental sounds (thunder, rain) frame the album on “Eyes of the Wind Theme.” Here, the harp sounds like raindrops falling on a warm puddle or blowing in the breeze. A lovely album. (By the way, Hoppe added to the artistry of the album by contributing two stormy (visual) landscapes for the liner notes.)

Michael Hoppe – Homeland

Michael Hoppe – Homeland
MP3 @ 320 Kbps | 40:10 min | 102 MB | 2001 | 10% Recovery Record

A live Celtic ensemble, with vocalists, joins composer/pianist Michael Hoppe on Homeland, a musical remembrance of the music of European immigrants. Taken as a whole, the album could be a soundtrack for a movie about Western expansion. The opening credits would roll to “Homeland Theme,” a victorious, heartening march with bagpipes, flutes, whistles, guitar, and snare drums. The Celtic theme is continued on “Cal’s Lament”; the piece opens with thunder and a heartbreaking theme played by pennywhistle (Richard Hardy). Synclavier tympani take up the thunder roll (with bird songs) and the vast landscape seems to unfold in front of the speakers, giving a sense of destiny. Two pieces sound like old Western dance orchestras: the country-awkward “Tumbleweed Waltz” and the not much more graceful (but trying) “From Vienna With Love.” Several pieces are unabashedly romantic, be they rhapsodic love themes or sad remembrances (“Elegy”). The stately “Lincoln’s Letter” was inspired by a letter from the president to a mother who had lost five sons in the Civil War. The album ends as a movie might, with a pop version of the initial theme, “Homeland,” sung by a vocalist, in this case Eliza Gilkyson. The song is similar to “God Bless America,” but the lyrics both pine for the old land and embrace the new. Between lyrics and to end the track, bagpipes and drums play to increase the courage. Fade credits. Homeland is an engaging album; its mix of Celtic brashness and sentimentality, innocent folksy dances, and tender romance are a winning combination. Many of these pieces can be found in other arrangements on Hoppe’s album Simple Pleasures.