CHARLES WUORINEN (b.1938): The Dante Trilogy (Chamber Version).

Description: The Dante Trilogy is a ballet score, the three sections referring to episodes in the three books of the Commedia. The music is not programmatic; the composer remarks that "certain isolated incidents, relationships, images, remarks, names are made the springboard for a musical fabric which also reflects certain basic aspects of the poem's word-structure". Thus, although the sections are given titles which refer to specific events in the narrative, musically there is less descriptive material than thematic cross-referencing, relating episodes to one another and providing a structure for the music analogous to that of the poem. The 'Inferno' work is for two pianos, and refers to various dramatic episodes in the poem, clearly delineated in character and tempo. The central work, for ensemble, based on Canto XXIX of 'Purgatorio' is divided into 11 sections, of which four are a brief refrain that ratchets up the excitement and energy of the music with each reappearance. The music throughout has a sense of movement and inexorable progression. The final work, for larger ensemble, while characteristically as complex as the earlier pieces, is somewhat more transparent of texture, building toward a ritualistic an majestic conclusion. All three sections of the work are infused with propulsive, restless, at times hectic energy, and despite the free nature of the composer's harmonic vocabulary - never completely atonal, but seldom conventionally tonal either, and full of contrapuntal complexity - the vitality of the music lends it a ready appeal and approachability. The Group for Contemporary Music. The Mission of Virgil originally released on Koch International Classics in 1998. Remainder world premiere recordings.