The three composers represented on this album are a triumvirate only in the loosest sense of the word, meaning a group of three. But the grouping works very well in many ways, and this is a release that should provide encouragement to those interested in the cause of contemporary music. All three composers deal with concerto-like contrasts between solo stringed instruments and orchestra. All the works are accessible, more or less traditional in structure, with clear tonal relationships, without being in any way classifiable as crossover. Yet the contrasts among the works are appealing indeed. Perhaps the strongest of the set is Gabriela Lena Frank's Compadrazgo, a programmatic work linked in general terms to the concept connoted by the title, which refers to camaraderie. Of the composers who have tried to apply Bartók's ideas to Latin American music over the years, Frank is perhaps the most imaginative and diverse in terms of both musical reference and technique. She draws together various Latin rhythms and percussion sounds into a tight concerto structure for cello, piano, and orchestra. The intensely lyrical, rather gloomy Fragile Solitudes (Shadowbox) by Lena Auerbach is for string quartet and orchestra, and Purple Rhapsody, by the much-honored Joan Tower, is for viola and orchestra. These works are related in technique, using broad timbral shades to build structure. Tower omits horns and oboes from the scoring to bring the viola to the foreground and exploit its contrasts with the orchestra, while the Auerbach work plays on the differences between the sound of a string quartet and that of orchestral strings. This recording comes from a fine ensemble in the U.S. heartland, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, from a city, Columbus, OH, that's not known for its contemporary music scene. All the music is direct, clear, and personal, and it's easy to imagine audiences forming a bond with any or all of these works.
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