Sciarrino: Lohengrin

Lohengrin is considered one of most remarkable of Sciarrino's works, which despite sharing a name with that other Lohengrin the only common characteristics are an inspiration from a particular medieval German fable and the fact that each is a product of a composer with a gift for highlighting emotional states through canny orchestration. Otherwise, Sciarrino's music is a logical continuation of Webern, a landscape of flinty utterances, alarming squeals and langorous sighs rendered all the more alien by Sciarrino's reliance upon unorthodox methods of sound production. Dramatically, the work continues the line of Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne's Maggot, in both of which mental disorder is depicted through fragmented lines and extreme vocal techniques.