mon 09/12/2024

CD: Tansy Davies - Troubairitz | reviews, news & interviews

CD: Tansy Davies - Troubairitz

CD: Tansy Davies - Troubairitz

Young British composer visits the dark side

'Troubairitz': There’s a satisfying darkness to Tansy Davies’s imagination

Tansy Davies’s neon and inside out 2 can’t help but recall Stravinsky’s 1940s commission for Woody Herrmann’s orchestra, the Ebony Concerto. There’s an idiomatic use of rich, low-pitched sounds (plenty of bassoon and bass clarinet), and insidious, catchy dance rhythms bounce away in the bass. There’s a hint of Louis Andriessen-style Euro-Minimalism too; these are pieces which really move. But there’s a satisfying darkness to Davies’s imagination; for all the foot-tapping, this is music with unsettling power and immediacy.

Tansy Davies’s neon and inside out 2 can’t help but recall Stravinsky’s 1940s commission for Woody Herrmann’s orchestra, the Ebony Concerto. There’s an idiomatic use of rich, low-pitched sounds (plenty of bassoon and bass clarinet), and insidious, catchy dance rhythms bounce away in the bass. There’s a hint of Louis Andriessen-style Euro-Minimalism too; these are pieces which really move. But there’s a satisfying darkness to Davies’s imagination; for all the foot-tapping, this is music with unsettling power and immediacy.

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