SILVIA COLASANTI (b.1975): Il canto di Atropo for Violin and Orchestra (Massimo Quarta [violin], Orchestra Verdi; Damian Iorio), Chaos: Commento a Haydn, Hob. XXXI:2, Ouverture for Orchestra (Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento; György Györgivanyi Ráth), La Rosa que no canto for String Quartet (Quartetto di Cremona), To Muddy Death for Flute, Clarinet, Piano, Violin and Cello (Algoritmo Ensemble; Marco Angius).

Description: The two orchestral works here are freely tonal (or freely atonal?), make use of large chunks of orchestral sound-color for expressive purposes but are hardly avant-garde as one thinks of the term in 2011. Il canto is a 15-minute concerto whose subject is the Greek Fate who cuts the thread of man's life at the appropriate moment; its orchestral palette is extremely broad as is the soloist's employment of his instrument's capabilities. Chaos takes the beginning of the overture to Haydn's Creation to create a quasi-palimpsestic competition between orchestral modernity (panting, breathing sounds, hammering ostinati, percussive violence, episodes redolent of blazing light) and faint survivals of the original Haydn. To Muddy Death could almost be theatre incidental music in its psychological and physical references to Hamlet's doomed girlfriend. For moderately adventurous 20th century orchestral collectors.