Wolff: Tilbury (Complete); Snowdrop

Wolff: Tilbury (Complete); Snowdrop

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
With references to early minimalism and a core sound that's as evocative as some of Morton Feldman's late works, Christian Wolff's Tilbury cycle is stunningly austere. He composed the works as demonstrations of pitch limitations, restricting some to as few as three pitches, which, when played singly, sound frightening. But Wolff has scripted slow-build collisions of the multiple pitches, too, making for a slippery iciness in spots, especially wherever Hildegard Kleeb's resonant piano figures meet Roland Dahinden's blurty trombone or wheezy melodica and Dimitrios Polisoidis's violin and viola. While this recording--named in part for pianist John Tilbury--is in the Feldmanesque slow-grow mode, there are spots where the trio makes glistening dissonance together, an effect of the instruments' finding an almost coarse grain between them. Tilbury will likely become the best-loved Wolff chamber piece, and as you hear Snowdrops emerge between the fourth and fifth Tilbury pieces, the 15-minute piece that dates from 1970 sounds like part of an extended dialogue between the stark and the vivid. --Andrew Bartlett

Wolff: Tilbury (Complete); Snowdrop, Music, Christian Wolff, Hildegard Kleeb, Roland Dahinden, Dimitrios Polisoidis, Chamber Music & Recitals, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Electronic/Avant-Garde/Minimalist Music

Wolff: Tilbury (Complete); Snowdrop

Google

Music Review: