FABIÁN PANISELLO (b.1963): 5 piezas métricas, Libro del frío for Soprano and Ensemble, 3 Movements for String Quartet.

Description: Only the first of the Five Pieces is actually called 'Patterns', but the term would serve equally well as an useful description of a primary preoccupation of the composer's, relevant to all the little jewel-like movements that make up these lively, varied suites. The pieces also share a light, aerial quality, tending to the higher instrumental registers, while harmony built on successions of higher harmonics, somewhat in the manner of the spectralists, lends the works a constant sense of buoyancy. The music seems to be in constant motion, even in the (relatively rare) slow pieces, and this is largely achieved through complex contrapuntal textures in which different layers proceed at different speeds, inviting obvious comparison with Elliott Carter (with whom he studied, a well as with Ferneyhough and Donatoni, which gives an idea of his position in current 'avant garde' circles). Panisello derives the components of his patterns from many sources; asymmetrical rhythms from Balkan, Asian or African traditional musics, for instance. The Book of Cold, setting poems by Antonio Gamoneda reflecting on life and mortality through the metaphor of a winter's journey, adds an intriguing human element to the restless evolving patterns; the soprano part traverses a huge range of vocal techniques - never distractingly 'extended', it should be noted; to that extent at least, Panisello is something of a post-modernist, or at least post-avantgardist - to project the concentrated, image-laden texts as their own fluid, transparent layer, suspended over the rippling activity of the ensemble. Texts and translations included. Allison Bell (soprano), Ensemble Meitar; Fabián Panisello.