It's unsurprising that composer Francisco Coll has been making headlines, for he has bridged modernist and traditional styles in a way that few other composers have managed. Coll writes densely orchestrated scores with clashing instrumental timbres and generally dissonant harmonies. Yet, he puts them all together in forms that feel traditional, even publishing his works with old-fashioned opus numbers. There are influences from Ligeti and from Coll's teacher Thomas Adès, but his voice is his own, and it has been ...
Read More
It's unsurprising that composer Francisco Coll has been making headlines, for he has bridged modernist and traditional styles in a way that few other composers have managed. Coll writes densely orchestrated scores with clashing instrumental timbres and generally dissonant harmonies. Yet, he puts them all together in forms that feel traditional, even publishing his works with old-fashioned opus numbers. There are influences from Ligeti and from Coll's teacher Thomas Adès, but his voice is his own, and it has been strengthening over the years. This is fully apparent in the program here by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg and conductor Gustavo Gimeno, with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja in the new Violin Concerto. The latter is new, state-of-the-art Coll, with a traditional three-movement form and even a cadenza. Coll has composed several works for this contemporary music specialist, and it's no wonder; she catches the tensions in his work perfectly. Those tensions, with older modes of...
Read Less