Search - Wourinen, Group for Contemporary Music :: Charles Wuorinen: Piano Quintet, The Mission of Virgil, Lightenings viii, Percussion Quartet

Wonderful Wuorinen

Christopher Forbes | Brooklyn,, NY | 09/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The music of Charles Wuorinen has gone out of fashion. Stark and uncompromisingly modern, his is music that doesn't fit into today's post-modern mélange of warmed over classics. And yet, to those who have the stamina and concentration to listen to this challenging music, he is revealed to be a composer at the height of his powers. This disc contains works from the mid 1990s and there's not a bad note in the set. The Piano Quintet is one of the strongest works by Wuorinen that I know...in fact; it may be the best work in the genre since Shostakovitch. It is a dense, muscular work, animated by infectious rhythms and harsh and uncompromising dissonance. Wuorinen is a serialist, but he is far from a dogmatic serialist and wields his material with freedom. Three of the works four movements are fast, and even the slow movement is less a lyrical respite than a slow, stark compositional field. This work repays repeated listening, even repeated listening in close proximity. There is always a new relationship to discover and the rhythmic nature of the piece makes it quite memorable. The Mission of Virgil is a two piano rendition of an orchestral ballet score the composer created for Peter Martins. The ballet is based on material from Dante. Like the Quintet, this is a dense, well-argued and muscular piece of music. While to me it is a bit harder to approach, the work is also quite beautiful and challenging and worth the effort. The Percussion Quartet is probably one of the best examples of percussion music I've heard in a long while. Rather than creating yet another "tribal percussion ritual" like so many others do when writing for the genre, Wuorinen creates an intensely rhythmic serial tour de force. This is exciting music, and excitingly played by the Group for Contemporary Music. The shame is that this CD along with Wuorinen's other Koch CDs, is out of print. It is well worth tracking down however, even used. Wuorinen is a reminder of what music could have been...tough and rigorous, but still attractive.... if marketing and cowardice hadn't hit music so hard in the late 20th century.... perhaps it's still not too late."

Modern Classics!

Christopher Forbes | 10/12/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The disc includes stunning performances of three extraodinary new works: PIANO QUINTET (the finest addition to the repertoire since Brahms!), THE MISSION OF VIRGIL (ballet score inspired by Dante, here in a twi piano version) and PERCUSSION QUARTET. This disc - produced by veteran Judith Sherman features some of the finest Wuorinen interpreters: Ursula Oppens, Fred Sherry, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble). If you have to spring for one Wuorinen chamber disc - make it this one."