BMOP’s New Zwilich Disc

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BMOP’s New Zwilich Disc

The review in WorldMusicReport of the new recording by Gil Rose’s Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) of a basket of Ellen Zwilich’s finest works sets the tone. It begins:

How do you characterize a recording that is glorious in aspects both musical and non-musical? You could begin almost anywhere. However, how about with the extraordinary Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) and the fact that while she wears her prodigious gift lightly—but she dispenses it most generously.

And what a splendid cross-section of Zwilich’s works this recording, with its first-rate performances, offers us. The disc begins with the spirited and surprising play on Bach’s violin solo Partita No.3, appropriately entitled Upbeat!, followed by the Symphony No. 5, (premiered at Juilliard), the Concerto Elegia for solo flute and strings, and the Commedia delle’Arte with its highly characteristic four movements (Arlecchino, Columbia, Capitano, Cadenza and Finale).

Gramophone echoes the enthusiastic reception:

Throughout a long and fertile career, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich has created works rich in character and emotion, and marked by impeccable craftsmanship. Those qualities are in healthy supply on this Boston Modern Orchestra Project recording of four Zwilich scores from the past quarter-century. They demonstrate how deftly the American Composer draws musicians, and their listeners, into narratives of immediate interest.

All the works, published by Theodore Presser (Merion), are performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra under the expert direction of Gil Rose and featuring flutist Sarah Brady and violinist Gabriela Diaz.

Label — BMOPsound [1098]

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