SYLVANO BUSSOTTI (b.1931): Il catalogo è questo.

Description: This cycle of symphonic 'movements' was started in the late 1970s, and was added to and expanded over much of the following decade. Some movements have somewhat in common with conventional orchestral music of the past, and here and there there are even allusions to styles or fragments of familiar repertoire, as in the balletic waltz in the opening section, 'Opus Cygne' or the Paganinesque figurations - not always on violin - of the 'Paganini' movement. Much of the music might be categorized as 'things Bussotti enjoys writing for large orchestral forces'; an exuberant display of Darmstadt-style compositional virtuosity for its own sake. Sometimes this virtuosity takes on concertante form - there are notable solo passages for several instruments, including the timpani in a brief movement of that name. Overall, as one might expect of this composer, the work is extrovert, flamboyant and complex, though by the standards set in the past few decades by various branches of avant garde art, not particularly experimental; some extended techniques here and there aside, the orchestra is mainly used conventionally, though obviously in a largely atonal idiom; the booklet notes do not make clear what, if any, proportion of the work might be in graphic or unconventional notation, but the results sound cohesive and structurally integrated in any case. The final movement (with choir and vocal soloists) features the composer as narrator. No texts or translations provided, though some of the above points about the relative conventionality of the music may be underlined by the fact that a listener with a decent working knowledge of Italian could follow them with no trouble, a few choral 'crowd scenes' aside - nothing broken up into phonemes here; the solo vocal lines, as with some solo material from earlier sections, could even be described as melodic. 2 CDs. No texts. Olivier Lallouette (baritone), Philippe Kahn (bass), Sylvano Bussotti (reciter), Philippe Koch (violin), Ilan Schneider (viola), Markus Brönnimann (flute), Simon Stierle (timpani), Ensemble vocal Aquarius, Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra; Arturo Tamayo.