<<  -- 2 --  Carson P Cooman    UNIQUE MUSICAL VISION

Most all of Lentz's music is part of an large ongoing cycle called 'Caeli enarrant...' ('The Heavens are Telling' -- from the Psalms) which is inspired by a personal combination of Christian religious ideology and astronomy. The movement titles of the works thus have names that are drawn from both celestial objects as well as phrases in Latin from traditional Christian liturgies.

The first work in this disc, 'Caeli enarrant...' IV (1991-2000) for string quartet and four cymbals provides an excellent summation of Lentz's musical language. Relentless unisons, abrasive dissonances, dance rhythms, luminous diatonic chorales, heterophonic passages, extended silences, and unpitched wood/instrument sounds all exist together in a unified whole. The extended and texturally varied first movement gives way to an excited scherzo [listen -- track 2, 0:00-0:48]. The third movement is very slow with distant beauty [listen -- track 3, 5:32-6:35] and the very short last movement brings the work to an close using mostly unpitched sounds. The use of the four cymbals in the third and fourth movements of the work adds a dramatic and creative sonic element.

The next two works on the disc are drawn from another ongoing project (a sub-project of 'Caeli enarrant...') called Mysterium. Although the original conception for Mysterium was a music that was not to be 'played' (almost 'beyond hearing'), Lentz has realized some of his conceptions in a series of pieces for various ensembles.

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