“How do you characterise a recording that is glorious in aspects both musical and non-musical?” So begins a rave review of the BMOP/sound all-Zwilich release by World Music Report. “You could begin almost anywhere. However, how about with the extraordinary Ellen Taaffe Zwilich [b. 1939] and the fact that while she wears her prodigious gift lightly – but she dispenses it most generously.”
After discussing each of the works on the recording - Upbeat (1999); Concerto Elegia (2015) with flute soloist Sarah Brady; Commedia dell’Arte (2012) with violin soloist Gabriela Diaz; and Symphony No. 5 (Concerto for Orchestra) (2008) - and praising the soloists, the review concludes: “All of these works have been premiered before, but somehow they all feel just as ‘right’ as performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under the baton of the inimitable Gil Rose. Just as the soloists in Concerto Elegia… and Commedia Delle’Arte… have brilliantly internalised Ms Zwilich’s music, so also does Mr Rose, who directs his performers to marry virtuoso skills with new inspiration. The result is an extraordinary recording that does absolute justice to the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s mandate: “…to explore the evolution of the music formerly known as classical… [offering along with] classics of the 20th century…music of today’s most influential and innovative composers. It’s hard not to feel that this recording is, somehow, the apogee of that mandate.”
Read the full review here.
