Ah Young Hong, Ensemble Klang, Tito Muñoz, The BBC Symphony Orchestra - Michael Hersch: The Script of Storms (2022) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Cortex and Ankle: I. —
02. Cortex and Ankle: II. —
03. Cortex and Ankle: III. —
04. Cortex and Ankle: IV. —
05. Cortex and Ankle: V. —
06. Cortex and Ankle: VI. —
07. Cortex and Ankle: VII. —
08. Cortex and Ankle: VIII. —
09. Cortex and Ankle: IX. —
10. Cortex and Ankle: X. —
11. Cortex and Ankle: XI. —
12. The Script of Storms: I. —
13. The Script of Storms: II. —
14. The Script of Storms: III. —
15. The Script of Storms: IV. —
16. The Script of Storms: V. —
17. The Script of Storms: VI. —
18. The Script of Storms: VII. —
19. The Script of Storms: VIII. —
20. The Script of Storms: IX. —

Composer Michael Hersch releases two works featuring his frequent collaborator soprano Ah Young Hong: cortex and ankle with Dutch based Ensemble Klang and the script of storms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Tito Muñoz. Hersch sets powerful texts by Christopher Middleton and Fawzi Karim respectively in these gripping works.

"Hersch's music gets under the listener's skin like no other ... the voice is central, but a voice that sounds like an instrument and that miraculously merges with the instruments, a technique that is tailor-made for Hong ... the intensity goes through marrow and bone." - NIEUWE NOTEN

"Hersch, the most poetry-driven of composers, set some of the darkest passages in Karim’s work ... a scene the poet witnessed as a child in Baghdad ― which comprises dragging a mutilated corpse through the streets ... a landscape that appears still and blanched ... a paroxysm of cries and frantic wings. The way the double basses suddenly have a two-note tune that aches gutturally as if straining from a swamp; its neck taut with the effort of utterance. Those twisted fanfares in the brass as if an entire regimental band is being crushed in a fist. And the voice, like a mother at the foot of a bloodstained wall ... upon hearing Ah Young Hong for the first time, Karim ... became obsessed with the progress of a composition that would serve as a vehicle for her remarkable voice. It was striking to observe how the most painful moments in his poems were delivered in high, piercing notes that seemed to obliterate the words themselves as if their fullest expression were not allowable."

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