Osvaldo Golijov refers to the initial recording of his La Pasión según San Marcos, taken from a live performance of its first production in 2000, as merely "a snapshot," in contrast with Deutsche Grammophon's beautifully engineered 2010 release, which captures the diverse textures of the work's many layers with sparkling clarity. The composer also writes that now that the piece has had a performance history of almost a decade, performers can bring a mature understanding to it without sacrificing its visceral punch. This ...
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Osvaldo Golijov refers to the initial recording of his La Pasión según San Marcos, taken from a live performance of its first production in 2000, as merely "a snapshot," in contrast with Deutsche Grammophon's beautifully engineered 2010 release, which captures the diverse textures of the work's many layers with sparkling clarity. The composer also writes that now that the piece has had a performance history of almost a decade, performers can bring a mature understanding to it without sacrificing its visceral punch. This release is special, too, because it includes two different performances of La Pasión, a DVD from the 2008 Holland Festival, with almost all the same performers (except that Robert Spano replaces María Guinand as conductor), in addition to the CDs. Musically, the piece departs drastically from any other passion setting, in Golijov's unique combination of a variety of traditions of Latin American and African singing and drumming, almost entirely undergirded by powerful rhythmic...
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