Search - Giya Kancheli, Radio Sym Orch of Vienna, Dennis Russell Davies :: Kancheli: Trauerfarbenes Land, ...a la Duduki / Davies, Vienna Radio Symphony Orch

The contrasts between Giya Kancheli's orchestral works, ... à la Duduki and Trauerfarbenes Land, which make up this collection, couldn't be more stark than they are. The performing ensemble might well be identical, both in size and core sonorities, but the energy of Duduki's fanfare-like opening, fractured though it is, resonates beautifully even as Trauerfarbenes begins in a similarly expressive pulse with totally other contours. The music doesn't leap with the brass ensemble's singularity right off the bat; and the percussion is positively menacing, laden with shock and power. Dennis Russell Davies has done wonders to draw out the most evocative possibilities of each work: the former with its hills and troughs--bright blasts interspersed with moments of atmospheric calm--and the latter with its juts and peaks of string-mixed energy, unwoven in the interceding, chromatic quietudes. The music has all the spiritual power of Kancheli's Abii Ne Viderem/Two Prayers and a great deal more frontal power. --Andrew Bartlett