Reviews and occasional notes on classical music

Reviews and occasional notes on classical music

"Music, both vocall and instrumental, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so super excellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like." - Thomas Coryat, after hearing 3 hours of music at the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, 1608.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Bold and provocative music, beautifully played

From May 16, 2014:


Tracy Silverman’s concerto for electric violin and string quartet Between the Kiss and the Chaos has an interesting programme. Each of the five movements is a personal musical response to a painting or sculpture. The work as a whole speaks to issues of creativity. “It’s about that need to share an idiosyncratic vision” says Silverman in his illuminating liner notes, “because there is something innately human about the need to tell someone, to share your experience, to get someone else to see the world through your eyes.” The chosen artworks, by Michaelangelo, Matisse, O’Keeffe, Van Gough and Picasso, are all bold and provocative, and Silverman’s music has a matching thrust and drive.

Silverman quotes Georgia O’Keefe: “I said to myself - I’ll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it.” The task of attracting attention for one’s art is even harder today than it was then. Silverman got this project off the ground with a successful Kickstarter campaign, and the involvement of the Calder Quartet and the Delos label will bring listeners as well. The musical ideas and the presentation by these talented musicians will fully justify that marketing success.

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