Xenakis: Large Orchestra Works, Vol. 1

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Free Music Notes for Xenakis: Large Orchestra Works, Vol. 1

Free Music Review: An impressive start to an important recording series
Hit: 4 Stars

This disc begins with the dramatic scena A?s, for baritone (who also sings falsetto), solo percussion and orchestra. Based on ancient Greek texts, this is a phenomenally intense work, with the soloist alternating between the deepest notes of his range and an unearthly wailing falsetto (this work and others of the composer's were written specifically for the phenomenal voice of Spyros Sakkas, the singer on this recording). Perhaps most impressive are the passages in the work where the tension suddenly releasees, and unexpected delicate modal melodies accompany surprisingly tender singing.

Trace?s, the work that follows, is one of the best works of Xenakis' late period, a five-minute coiled spring of energy that never lets up for one moment--in contrast, Empreintes is often comparatively calm, opening on constant reiterations of one note, then contrasting it with massed string glissandi, repeated chords and trills, and closing with a mass of eerie repeated notes as if a vast range of interstellar signals were all going off at the same time.

The other two works on the disc impress me rather less. Noomena is impressive in its massed glissandi, but the musical argument seems to me to be less focused than in Empreintes, while Ro?? is a rather routine essay in clashing slowly treading chords against a very different--though only apparently unrelated--melodic line.

Xenakis' music is certainly not for everyone, but his language is amongst the most immediately appealing of the post-war avant-garde. This series of discs should certainly bring new friends to the composer's music, even if (as this and other discs in the series have shown) Xenakis' oeuvre is sometimes a little inconsistent. All credit to the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, who manage impassioned and energetic performances under the experienced hand of Arturo Tamayo.

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