This album collects various works by composer
Gity Razaz, born in Tehran and resident in New York. They were written as far back as 2007 and as recently as 2020. BIS' engineers have done a fine job of fusing the diverse sound sources, two of them live (and one a rock music club), into a coherent whole, and it is great to have a group of this composer's works in one place.
Razaz's music is rich in hue, rhapsodic, exploring the timbres of stringed instruments, augmented in a couple of cases by electronics. One might call it Neo-Expressionist, for it brings to mind what the young
Schoenberg might have written if he had come along a century later (and not gone off into the serialist detour). The music has sharp contrasts between dense, violent passages and more melodic, rhapsodic episodes, and
Razaz's personality persists between larger pieces, such as the title work for all-cello ensemble, as well as chamber pieces, and the electronics that appear in two works augment the sound palette rather than introducing a foreign element. The overall effect is perhaps spooky and personal, yet the music seems to fall into a long modern tradition, not just evoking
Schoenberg but drawing inspiration from novelist Roberto Bolaño (the title work) and Salvador Dalí (the concluding Metamorphosis of Narcissus, for chamber orchestra and electronics). This is well worth checking out, and it seems likely to appeal even to listeners who generally avoid contemporary composition. ~ James Manheim