String Quartet Collection: Including Movements for Harp & String Quartet, and Harp Solo

After years of efforts to release forgotten film masterpieces, former Killiam Collection curator Sandra Birnhak
commissioned composer Al Kryszak to write new film scores for the rare collection titled “A Christmas Past”, featuring
directors going back to Thomas Edison himself, Edwin S. Porter, D.W. Griffith and John S. Robertson.

Years after the KINO International DVDrelease of the films, this suite for String Quartet & Harp offers an off-center take on the holidays, with a few mis-remembered Christmas quotes, for people who have trouble with holidays (and aren't afraid to admit it).

Premiered live in 2022 by The New England Film Orchestra conducted by Gina Naggar in Boston, the original recording
on AppleMusic, titled “Having an Atonal Christmas”, featured Buffalo, New York-based musicians Bryan Eckenrode, Brain Walnicki, Alan Reed & Gregory Docenko. The quartets include the energy of Kryszak's guitar solo work, even some harmonic distortion of sorts, combined with sentimental melodies that counter stringent harmonies resulting from close canonic structures and polytonal passages.

(d.f.)

REVIEWS: The String Quartet & Harp Collection

“These films have been digitally mastered from original 35mm elements and are accompanied by a wistful new score by Al Kryszak -- performed by a variety of instruments including harp, violin, and Christmas handbells -- which beautifully enhances the delicate shadings of each of these rare and fascinating treasures.”

- KINO International

“If you were checking out perennial cable home for vintage films Turner Classic Movies last Sunday at midnight in search of holiday movie comfort food, you might have left a little confused. Or enchanted, intrigued and delightfully weirded out. That’s all depending on your reaction to the network’s airing of a collection of turn-of-the-century (the 20th century) silent holiday shorts from the years 1901-25. In the mix of nine shorts, ranging in length from 5 to 29 minutes (a 1910 Edison Film Manufacturing Corp. adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” clocks in at a brisk 10), late-night viewers seeking some untrodden holiday film fare also heard something unusual. Over the flickering images of wildly eclectic Christmas drama from more than a century ago, the nine films feature a decidedly uncharacteristic score for holiday movies. A complex mix of violin, harp and handbell, the soundtrack interwoven among all nine shorts is by Maine-based composer and filmmaker Alan Kryszak, all original compositions written by Kryszak for the films’ DVD release (titled “A Christmas Past”) for the esteemed Kino Lorber imprint.”

- Dennis Perkins: The Portland Press Herald

Concert Music:

"His classical pieces are beautifully wrought, and include a lovely set of works for clarinet and orchestra (which he released as All The Luck, in 2008), several sets of piano works, and Having an Atonal Christmas, for string quartet and harp, as well as soundtrack music for silent films, including an inventive flute and guitar score for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and a piano concerto that doubled as a score for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde¸ and that the pianist Anthony DeMare has recorded. "

- Allan Kozinn: San Francisco Classical Voice

“Alan Kryszak is a composer, guitarist and photo artist. His former works include not only albums, but also classical pieces for a range of instruments, including pianos, strings and full-scale orchestra. Not reviewed on DPRP, his Codex Suburbia from 2016 is my favourite work by Alan (and his most ambitious one) which lovers of modern classical / chamber music should definitely pick and enjoy.”

- Sergey Nikulichev: The Dutch Prog Rock Report