An Awkward Mix
Contemporary music
for strings -
heard by
ANDREW SCHARTMANN'... Burwasser sets himself apart from the others with music that exhibits a strong sense of form and proportion ...'
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Much in keeping with a nineteenth-century trend, modern-day composers often provide programmatic interpretations of their work. The extra-musical texts of today, however, typically lack the rich literary and cultural associations of their forebears, focusing instead on commonplace emotional experiences introduced by anecdotal storytelling.
Navona Records' new disc of contemporary works for string orchestra — an eclectic mix of eight different artists — is an embodiment of this trend. In place of deeply artistic grapplings with Shakespearean psychology or Dantean theology, we find a one-dimensional expression of grief, a paragraph-long pontification on how to avoid the pitfalls of life, and perhaps most surprising of all, a comparison between birds of prey and those who infect hemophiliacs with contaminated blood...
Copyright © 7 October 2013
Andrew Schartmann,
Connecticut USA
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