I’ve listened to and liked a lot of Missy Mazzoli’s operatic and vocal music but hadn’t had much exposure to her purely instrumental writing so  was interested to get hold of a copy of her new SACD release Dark with Excessive Bright.

The title track was originally composed as a concerto for double bass and string orchestra but here it’s given in two reworkings for solo violin; one with string orchestra and the other with string quintet.  The soloist is Peter Herresthal and in the orchestral version he’s accompanied by the Bergen Philharmonic conducted by James Gaffigan.  I think all the hallmarks of Mazzoli’s music, except perhaps the use of electronics, are present in this piece.  There’s a baroque sensibility combined with 20th century minimalism but in the context of the 21st century’s embrace of individual voices rather than dominant fashions.  So, largely tonal chords are recycled n different, fairly repetitive rhythmic patterns, but it never gets dull or new agey.  I think I like the arrangement for string quintet even more.  Here it’s players from the Arctic Philharmonic conducted by Tim Weiss accompanying.  The textures are lighter and it seems to have more clarity.  Good stuff.

Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), played by the Arctic Philharmonic and Weiss, is fascinating.  There are rococo loops, slow at first, then wilder, playing over a hurdy gurdy like wheezing, droning sound.  It gets louder and more insistent and quite ominous before fading away into nothingness. Continue reading →