Woven Lights
Vito Palumbo
BIS-2625 (bis.se)
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Although it was released in January the CD Woven Lights, featuring the Violin Concerto and the Chaconne for electric violin (five strings) and electronics by Italian composer Vito Palumbo (b.1972) only recently came to my attention (BIS-2625 bis.se).
The 2015 Violin Concerto was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in September 2016 with soloist Francesco D’Orazio and the London Symphony Orchestra under Lee Reynolds. It’s a quite fascinating work, albeit difficult to describe; in the booklet notes the description is “a work of bittersweet lyricism,” the composer himself noting the echoes of Alban Berg, especially towards the end of the piece.
D’Orazio recorded the two-part Chaconne of 2019-20 in Italy in January 2021 and it is much more difficult to assess objectively. Francesco Abbrescia realizes the sampled sounds and electronics in I. Woven Lights, where the chaconne principle of variation in the opening section gradually transforms into a dialogue with initially sparse electronics that become thicker and denser, while II. The Glows in the Dark is for electric violin and 30 pre-recorded electronic violin parts, pre-recorded by the same performer.
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