Silvina Milstein: Women Make Music

In this LORELT CD, Lontano (conducted by Odaline de la Martinez, solo harp Helen Tunstall) performs a cycle of five works by Silvina Milstein. These compositions share a concern with the exploration of states of heightened awareness and the creation of evocative modes of musical continuity arising from the use of familiar materials in the context of free-association. By presenting these recent works together – like renderings of a mountain from many sides, under different lights, and at different scales – this album lures listeners into a multifaceted contemplative journey.

Of Gold and Shadows and Shan Shui were both inspired by mysterious symbolic spaces depicted in certain ancient Chinese landscapes. Ochre, Umber and Burnt Sienna reflects Vermeer’s expressive backgrounds saturated with tiny strokes of earth pigments inviting us to enter domestic spaces, in which pensive women ponder and rest.

A concern with ‘blended sonorities’ through the use of pairs or groups of the same instrument provides another binding feature.  Of Gold and Shadows (for fourteen players) includes pairs of flutes, horns and trumpets as well as a string septet with three violins; here brass sonorities occasionally punctuate the continuous veil of translucent chords resting on the hollow sound of a bass flute.  In Ochre, Umber and Burnt Sienna three violins and a pair of double basses are complemented by flute and harp. Also in the trios entitled A Thousand Golden Bells in the Breeze and But your Sound Lingered on in Lions and Rocks, a harp is enveloped by pairs of double basses and trumpets respectively.