The Blutwurst Ensemble, a seven piece chamber group from Florence, Italy, comprising trumpet, bass clarinet, accordion, harmonium, viola, cello, and double bass. Zgodność is a single, forty-five minute-long piece composed by Cyril Bondi and D’Incise for the group; the composers, who work together as an electroacoustic duo under the name Diatribes, also provided a background tape. The present composition is one of nuance, consisting of a slowly developing essay in harmonic drift and timbral fusion that unfolds through gestural repetition and an incremental rearrangement of tones. The first half consists of long tones accented by stabs of pizzicato strings and tuned metal percussion, punctuated by silences; the tones drift in and out of harmonies that can take the form of simple and restful major triads or more suspenseful, brooding chords darkened by the prominent movement of double bass and bass clarinet. Following an extended silence about halfway through, the piece moves into a phase of long, drifting tonal masses and denser textures that begin as a tense, discordant drone and through incremental harmonic and dynamic shifts, and a turn toward more articulated phrasing, gradually grow more and then less concordant.
Daniel Barbiero
Avant Music News 