Between Worlds is a collaboration between composer/cellist Margaret Maria and soprano/poet Donna Brown.  It uses words and music to explore the tension between Thanatos and Eros via a symbolic journey from Sunset to Sunrise.  The piece is in eight movements totalling a little over half an hour of music.  The style and technique varies widely.  Two poems “Sunrise” and “Sunset” are spoken over a sparse cello commentary.  Others are sung but they too vary from a fairly conventional singing style backed up by complex, extended cello technique to a more declamatory style with metronomic accompaniment.  To me it felt (in a weird way) “bardic”.  By which i mean that the instrument was largely being used to emphasise the text in a way that Homer or the Beowulf poet might have related to.  It’s also clearly a very personal statement about art, life and death and one’s reception of it is going to be impacted by how closely one can align with it philosophically.

Technically it’s well recorded (at Raven Street Studios in Ottawa) standard CD quality and comes with full texts and extensive bilingual (English/French) documentation.

Catalogue number: Centrediscs CMCCD 30522