Ensemble intercontemporain, François-Xavier Roth - Posadas: Oscuro Abismo De Llanto Y De Ternura (2010)

Kairos's previous disc of music by Alberto Posadas, which appeared just over a year ago, was devoted to his hugely impressive cycle of pieces for string quartet, Liturgia Fractal, composed between 2003 and 2007. This latest collection is in many ways its complement, for it includes four works for ensemble composed over more or less the same period as the quartet pieces. They are all challenging, densely packed scores, their tangled surfaces underpinned by elaborate mathematical models often derived from processes in the natural world. But the sheer impact of the music is hugely impressive in its own right – in the finest of them, Oscuro Abismo de Llanto y de Ternura, composed for Ensemble InterContemporain in 2003, the sounds collide with tectonic force, their instrumental layers moving at different rates, while both Nebmaat, with a musical structure based upon the internal plan of an Egyptian pyramid, and Cripsis, with its spectralist harmonies and Xenakis-like physicality, generate almost equal power from significantly smaller forces.