{"product_id":"milano-musica-festival-live-vol-13","title":"Milano Musica Festival Live, Vol. 2","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eXENAKIS \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003ePhlegra. Anaktoria. Dhipli Zyla. Waarg. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eVARÈSE \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eOctandre. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eROMITELLI \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eMediterraneo I \u0026amp; II \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Stefan Asbury, cond; Asko Ens; Marieke Koster (mez) \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e STRADIVARIUS 33871 (72:34) Live: Milan 11\/6\/2005 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eGERVASONI \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eMeta della ripa.\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003e MANZONI \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003eOde. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eSembianti. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eWEBERN \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003ePassacaglia \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Lothar Koenigs, cond; RAI Natl SO \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e STRADIVARIUS 33872 (69:16) Live: Milan 11\/4\/2006 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThanks to the cost-cutting and absence of commercial considerations that occur as more orchestras, ensembles, artists, and in this case festivals issue their own recordings or find new outlets for them, audiences now have an increased opportunity to experience more unusual repertory, especially contemporary music. The Milan Music Festival has specialized in the latter since 1991, and these two concert recordings—Volume 2 featuring the Xenakis, Volume 3 the Gervasoni, et al.—show how they are frequently able to establish helpful thematic, stylistic, or conceptual connections between familiar and lesser-known works in their programming. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThe Netherlands’s Asko Ensemble, featured in Vol. 2, has a long history of exceptional performances of 20th- and 21st-century works (see its large and impressive catalog of recordings at askoschoenberg.nl), and by anchoring its concert with Edgard Varèse’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eOctandre\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, it focuses the listener’s attention on the variety of ways in which kindred composers Iannis Xenakis and Fausto Romitelli construct surprising tonal environments out of sometimes subtle, sometimes extravagant timbral and textural resources. The four Xenakis selections wisely reflect different periods, and thus distinct characteristics, from his career. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDhipli Zyla\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (1952), the earliest, is a contrapuntal dance for violin and cello, showing Bartók’s influence on the composer’s use of Greek folk material, while \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003ePhlegra\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (1975), for 11 instruments, suggests a Stravinsky-like rhythmic lilt and an almost slapstick humor to the ever-more-insistent harmonic disorientation. The harsh juxtaposition of colors swells and recedes in \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eAnaktoria\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (1969), while the separate layers of activity in \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eWaarg\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (1988), like isolated lines drawn in the air, twist and blend in the wind. Heard together, they are good preparation for Romitelli’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eMediterraneo\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (1992). Divided into two parts, the first sets contrasting qualities in instrumental groups against each other—sliding strings, resonating chimes, sustained wind tones—as if the sounds were reaching out from a common nucleus; the second part, including mezzo-soprano Marieke Koster’s intonation of an elliptical text by the French poet Paul Valéry, is equally dense but more compact, implying a nevertheless vague tonal center toward which the pitches are now drawn. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThough placed at the end of Vol. 3, Anton Webern’s richly textured, lyrically abstracted Passacaglia (1909) conceptually sets the stage for the music of Stefano Gervasoni and Giacomo Manzoni, whose works imaginatively reorganize the orchestra into patterns of colors rather than instrumental sections. The shimmering motives and static but evocative sonorities in Gervasoni’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eMeta della ripa\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (2002–03) may seem reminiscent of some spectral strategies, but the fluctuating events, alternately chilly and heated, form a cohesive, gradually emerging drama. Likewise, Manzoni’s two compositions are full of shifting textures and dynamics creating dramatic tension, but obtained through unpredictable, partially indeterminate, devices. In \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eOde\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (1982), the orchestral material is divided into five “tracks” that progress horizontally in and out of sync with each other, although the blend of sounds is altogether natural and convincing. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eSembianti\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (2003) is a kind of \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eEnigma Variations\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, with parts of the composition dedicated to friends, using pitch motives derived from their names, mixing in solos from all sections of the orchestra, and inserting free rhythmic episodes—less of a storytelling enigma, however, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eà la\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e Elgar, than a structural one. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eBoth the Asko Ensemble and the RAI National Orchestra make a strong case for the new music as well as the more familiar items they are presenting. Recommended to adventurous listeners. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Art Lange \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Stradivarius","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49710160511256,"sku":"8011570338716","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1827693.jpg?v=1777649131","url":"https:\/\/hbdirect.com\/products\/milano-musica-festival-live-vol-13","provider":"HBDirect","version":"1.0","type":"link"}