Sweden's BIS label has carved out an interesting niche by presenting music with a virtuoso Romantic ethos, whether it dates as far back as Carl Maria von Weber or as recently as the present day. The music of Australian-German composer Brett Dean, a former violist with the Berlin Philharmonic, demands plenty of string technique grafted onto music displaying central European modernist techniques. The program reaches its fun high point with Twelve Angry Men, originally composed for the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, ...
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Sweden's BIS label has carved out an interesting niche by presenting music with a virtuoso Romantic ethos, whether it dates as far back as Carl Maria von Weber or as recently as the present day. The music of Australian-German composer Brett Dean, a former violist with the Berlin Philharmonic, demands plenty of string technique grafted onto music displaying central European modernist techniques. The program reaches its fun high point with Twelve Angry Men, originally composed for the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, and is a work that combines humor with a dark undercurrent of commentary on the way the individual in contemporary society is shouted down by increasingly nasty crowds. Entirely different is Intimate Decisions for solo viola (1996), performed, as is the Viola Concerto, by Dean himself. Dean likens the process of writing for a solo instrument to writing a personal letter or having an intense discussion with a close friend. The personal letter comparison is apt: the work begins with...
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