Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

The first of the four live world premiere recordings on this CD is by Oriol Cruixent who was born in Spain in 1976. It is called "Abismes" ("Abysses" in English) and starts well, giving a dramatic tone poem depicting the ascent of Mankind. But then there is a little musical phrase that repeats: "da-da-da-da-dum-dum" and the whole work degenerates, at least in this reviewer's ears, into variations on the title theme of "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" as scored by Stravinsky. And then things get worse. Gerd Kuhn, born in Austria in 1952, has tried to write a Magnificat for the 21st century with new texts taken from Rainer Maria Rilke and Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Dear readers, I try to listen to everything all the way through before sharing my thoughts, such as they are, with you but I have to confess that I used the skip button here. In all my years reviewing for Cross Rhythms this is the most horrible noise I have ever heard. And yet it gets worse. Joanna Wozny was born in Poland in 1973. Her offering is "Archipel", a contemplation on the Mother of God for a big orchestra. Why it had to be a big orchestra is unclear to me and even more unclear is why no one from said orchestra told her to shut up and stop wasting their time. It is almost a disappointment to confess that I quite enjoyed the closing "Salve Regina" by the Austrian Johanna Doderer (born 1969) with the Soprano Marlis Petersen giving us a recognisable melody and the orchestra doing old-fashioned things such as playing in tune. I will gladly listen to more work by Fraulein Doderer but the other three composers need not apply.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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