Missy Mazzoli: Dark with Excessive Bright

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The orchestras here hail from Norway, where their own experience of dark light perhaps enables their instinctive response to Mazzoli’s arresting blend of apparent opposites. — BBC Music Magazine, June 2023, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) . 5 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 7th Apr 2023
Catalogue No: BIS2572
Label: BIS
Length: 66 minutes

Grammy Awards

66th Awards (2024)

Nominee - Best Classical Compendium
Grammy Awards

66th Awards (2024)

Nominee - Best Contemporary Classical Composition (Dark With Excessive Bright)
BBC Music Magazine Awards

2024

Shortlisted - Premiere

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Mazzoli: Dark with Excessive Bright

Work length14:05

$2.05

$3.05

Peter Herresthal, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
James Gaffigan

Mazzoli: Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)

Work length8:46

$1.50

$2.30

Arctic Philharmonic
Tim Weiss

Mazzoli: These Worlds in Us

Work length8:46

$1.50

$2.30

Arctic Philharmonic
Tim Weiss

Mazzoli: Orpheus Undone

Work length14:56

$3.05

$4.55

Arctic Philharmonic
Tim Weiss

Pt. 1: Behold the Machine, O Death

Track length9:50

$1.00

$1.50

Pt. 2: We of Violence, We Endure

Track length5:06

$2.05

$3.05

Mazzoli: Vespers for Violin

Work length5:52

$1.50

$2.30

Peter Herresthal

Mazzoli: Dark with Excessive Bright

Work length13:53

$1.00

$1.50

Arr. For solo violin and string quintet
Peter Herresthal, Arctic Philharmonic
Tim Weiss

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Interview, Missy Mazzoli on Dark with Excessive Bright

16th May 2023

In the wake of the first full-length album of her orchestral music on BIS, the American composer talks about the writers and musicians who've inspired her work...

"Named ‘2022 Composer of the Year’ by Musical America, Missy Mazzoli inhabits an exquisite and mysterious sound-world in which indie-rock sensibilities meet American minimalism, European modernism and classical traditions. The first woman ever to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera, she has also composed for prominent soloists, ensembles and orchestras around the world. Through her music, she reaches to the roots of tradition, inhabits and renovates older forms while using every resource at her command. Mazzoli, who says that she likes “to tell stories”, always imagines actors, singers and dancers grappling with a situation, even when she composes instrumental works. The album is bookended by two versions of the same work: loosely based on baroque idioms the violin concerto Dark with Excessive Bright is first heard with string orchestra accompaniment and then in a chamber version. The soloist is in both cases Peter Herresthal, who also performs Vespers for Violin, a piece for amplified violin and electronics using sampled organs, voices and strings, drenched in delay and distortion. Three orchestral works complete the programme: Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), These Worlds in Us and Orpheus Undone in performances by the Arctic Philharmonic under Tim Weiss."

Reviews

June 2023

The orchestras here hail from Norway, where their own experience of dark light perhaps enables their instinctive response to Mazzoli’s arresting blend of apparent opposites.

31st March 2023

Highly individual, atmospheric, suggestive of deep thought and emotion, they make a fine introduction to Mazzoli’s music… Peter Herresthal is the eloquent soloist in both versions, which complement each other in subtlety and sonorities.

Wall Street Journal 13th March 2023

Ms. Mazzoli’s disinclination to embrace a specific school of thought about tonality or style, and her imaginative approach to orchestration, have allowed her to create idiosyncratic sound worlds. In “Dark With Excessive Bright”…the solo violin line moves between modal and chromatic passages, preening Romanticism and timbral effects, all shining through a dark, moody ensemble fabric.

Record Review 3rd April 2023

Dark with Excessive Bright – beautiful sounds. The way the solo violin slides and slips into and between the percussive texture of the ensemble. The way the strings play memories of Baroque baselines welling up around the soloist – really entrancing.

Missy Mazzoli: Dark with Excessive Bright

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Interview, Missy Mazzoli on Dark with Excessive Bright

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