Abstract
This CD presents six new recordings of Mario Davidovsky compositions spanning a period of nearly thirty-five years, performed by some of his leading champions. Featured are three of Davidovsky’s “Synchronisms” pieces for instruments and electronic sounds. This series of path-breaking works (including the Pulitzer Prize-winning No. 6 for piano and electronics) incorporates some of the Argentine-born Davidovsky’s best known compositions. The Synchronisms series presents the listener with brilliantly imagined ‘sonic-spaces’ that combine extreme instrumental virtuosity with an accompanying pre-recorded track that utilizes both electronic and concrete sounds. The music that Davidovsky offers is notable for its highly musical interweaving of materials from radically differing sound sources. In addition to the Synchronisms pieces, three chamber works round out this collection. Duo Capriccioso, heard in its first recording, is a whimsical dialogue between violin and piano. Quartetto contrasts delicate unison writing with ferociously biting tuttis; and Chacona is a granitic masterpiece of heroic virtuosity. CD annotator Eric Chasalow writes that “Davidovsky was already a composer of great accomplishment when Aaron Copland brought him from Argentina to Tanglewood in 1959. There, Milton Babbitt recognized the young composer’s potential and made the crucial suggestion that he travel to New York City.” Davidovsky eventually became director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, where he came into contact with Edgard Varèse and many other leading musicians of the day. Chasalow calls Davidovsky “one of the truly original musical voices to have emerged from post war America....with this music we are drawn into a world that is highly coherent, elegant and compelling.”