Dissonant 20th century orchestral music in the vein of Xenakis, Varese, and Ligeti. And of similar *great* quality! Toss it in and dig in – juicy textures and orchestrations! The last piece is a fricking masterpiece, with tons of different ideas, textures, rhythms, etc – very fun performance. FCC clean.

*1. Slow-moving, massive, and dramatic gestures, but it’s interesting, tense, and pulls you along in all the right places. Mmm. Really reminds me of Xenakis in that it almost seems architectural, like massive blocks of sound that are in balance. Superb orchestration!!
2. Violin concerto. Skittering theme that gets old after too much repetition. Again, killer orchestrations, but this seems like the most “academic” and unoriginal piece on this disc.
*3-15. Gorgeous in its entirety. Play the whole thing, a few tracks, or even just one.
3. Good old violent-dissonant 20th century atonalness.
4. Starts slow and quiet, gets *very* scary – maybe a soundtrack to Raskolnikov’s inner thoughts in Crime and Punishment.
5. Slow and very quiet, sustained.
6. Beautifully active – a *great* contrast to the previous track. Kinda soundtrack-y.
7. Staccato fun in the first half, percussion humor in the second half.
8. Thin dissonant drone under flutters from other instruments. The sounds seem like animals skittering about – fun fun.
9. Fast-moving chords, much fuller than the last many tracks. Very tight performance!
10. Overlapping running brass lines.
11. An homage to Rothko. Very little motion. Quiet string dissonance.
12. Blaring scary brass chords gives way to nearly inaudible string dissonance with the occasional loud chord. Ha, an homage to Wagner apparently.
13. Dissonant string sliding, snare drum rolls.
14. Bombastic mono-rhythm in funny chords.
15. Quiet string ending with oboe solo.