BRUNO MANTOVANI (b.1974): Le Sette Chiese for Ensemble, Streets for Ensemble, Eclair de Lune for 3 Instrumental Groups and Electronics.

Description: Le Sette Chiese is a musical evocation of a place - the "Seven Churches" complex in Bologna, which incorporates elements from the 7th century through the Renaissance. The ensemble is divided, allowing antiphonal, spatial effects, and these, along with the contours of the musical material, are frequently employed to produce a powerfully representational image of the various parts of the building. Lofty spaces, drawing the eye upward, are clearly delineated in microtonal glissandi; dark-hued timbres suggest the shadows of the tombs, scintillating shards of high-pitched sound suggest sunlight on gold leaf, and so on. For all its modern idiom, the music's vivid imagery lends it a clearly discernible shape and structure, even on first hearing. Streets is a portrait of the hectic activity of New York City, based on limited harmonic material, presented in constant restless transformation. Eclair de lune is essentially a virtuosic piano work, its timbral world expanded through the presence of spatially disposed instrumental groupings, and further enhanced by the transformation and projection of instrumental sounds by electro-acoustic means. IRCAM, Ensemble Intercontemporain; Susanna Mälkki.