Harvey, J: Natajara

The chamber music included in this recording, composed between the years 1973 and 2004, may enable the listener to understand certain essential aspects of Jonathan Harvey’s work as a composer over the last three decades. One of the most significant figures on the contemporary scene, Harvey is an artist in the full sense of the word: composer, scholar and thinker. Quantumplation is particularly influenced by the serial writing and combination techniques developed by Milton Babbitt, the American composer particularly noted for his serial and electronic music. Flight-Elegy and Nataraja have close links t o oriental philosophy and music. The Riot presents a plurality of layerspromptings -reverberations, in which echoes of Stravinsky, Indian rhythms, jazz elements and techniques derived from electronic music join together. Tombeau de Messiaen, written in memory of the great French composer, has the piano interacting with a pre-recorded electronic part in which 12 pianos were tuned to 12 different harmonic series, one for each note of the octave. Vers is a piece written for Boulez’ 75th birthday and contains a quotation from Bhakti. In Run Before Lightning, the most recent composition here, the quasi improvisatory writing alternates with, and is progressively replaced by, sections in which harmonic fields constructed around a central axis are realised in almost canonical, 'cantabile' writing. The Dynamis Ensemble, founded in Milan in 1999 by soloists with a common passion for contemporary music, is conducted by its founder and artistic director, Javier Torres Maldonado.

Jonathan Harvey is now in constant demand from a host of international organizations, attracting commissions far into the future. His music is extensively played and toured by major ensembles. Tombeau de Messiaen is for piano and Digital Audio Tape.