Mario Davidovsky: Salvos - Chamber Music

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Mario Davidovsky: Salvos - Chamber Music

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"Mario Davidovsky's reputation rests securely on the innovative electronic works he composed in the 1960s, most notably his Synchronisms. Yet Davidovsky's instrumental music deserves equal appreciation and deeper investigation, for his chamber works are just as fascinating as the early tape explorations but are sadly underperformed outside academia and rarely recorded. The pieces on this 2004 release from Arabesque show Davidovsky's heightened sensitivity to timbres and textures, and his delicate sonorities and angular lines are transparently colored and expressively shaded. His language is still avant-garde – short gestures, ambiguous rhythms, varied attacks, and sudden changes of dynamics – and Davidovsky has refined his music to what might seem an extreme distillation of his earlier methods. Even so, there is a wealth of ideas in all five pieces; and though this music seems spare and focused in the moment, it is not rarefied in content or emotion. The Empyrean Ensemble performs Simple Dances (1991-1999), the Quartetto (1987), Salvos (1986), and the String Trio (1982) with intensity and agility; and with virtuoso soprano Susan Narucki in the flamboyantly disjointed Cantione Sine Textu (2001), the musicians convey the full range of Davidovsky's expression. Arabesque's recording is fine."

-Blair Sanderson, All Music Guide