This CD's title, Messe Noire, and its dark cover art may mislead some into thinking this album is filled with evil, forbidden things; but the only selection that suggests the diabolical is Alexander Scriabin's macabre Sonata No. 9, "Black Mass," and it comes at the very end, after Igor Stravinsky's light, neo-Classical Serenade in A, Dmitry ...
This double-disc survey of Arvo Pärt's distinctive oeuvre covers his most popular choral pieces, but also presents enough of his early work to provide a reasonably accurate portrait of a composer who has passed through several eventful decades and made several adjustments in his style. A few of Pärt's more experimental pieces are presented here, ...
Silvestrov wrote the pieces recorded here, scored for piano solo, string orchestra, and piano and strings, between 1996 and 2005, and they are all representative of his late, meditative, song-like style. After an early career as an experimentalist, Silvestrov embraced the radical simplicity -- a style of tonal, melodic, and rhythmic transparency - ...
The title of ECM's release of works by three composers born in the former Soviet Union perfectly captures the mood of the CD -- it is truly mysterious. Although more than half a century separates the first of these pieces from the most recent, they share a sense of otherness that defies easy explanation. The pieces are not so much mysterious in ...
Joining together Schnittke's piano quintet with Shostakovich's last string quartet on a single disc was inspired. Both works were composed in the mid-'70s in the U.S.S.R., but more importantly, both works are intimately concerned with dying and death: Schnittke wrote his piano quintet on the death of his mother and Shostakovich wrote his last ...
Sweden's BIS label enlivens the historical-performance arena with this recording of Mozart's two concertos for more than one piano with orchestra, and the results are mixed. A trio of veteran players delivers performances that are confident, detailed, and graceful throughout. The sound, despite the fact that the booklet is festooned with logos ...
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