Cosmic Trilogy - $16.95

Guillaume Connesson is a young French composer and this recording certainly seems a major opportunity for him to show his capabilities to a wide audience. This recording showcases a collection of four tremendously virtuousic composition. The music is exuberant, sophisticated but not particularly demanding for the listene. Connesson's idiom leans heavily on the French impressionists, particularly Ravel and also Dutilleux as a later incarnation of this tradition. All three of these movements - Aleph, A Glimmer in the Age of Darkness, and Supernova - pivot on cosmological themes. Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and also the symbol of infinity, opens the work with a powerful symphonic dance. It sounds like a hybrid of Ravel's La Valse, Strauss' Dance of Salome and a Star Wars score. The second movement - `Glimmer' - is a brooding, icy meditation on the dark, inanimate ages that followed upon the birth of the universe. Connesson's palette shimmers as impressively as Ravel's in Daphnis & Chloé. The final movement takes its cue from the collapse of a star's life in a supernova and is the earliest piece of the set, dating from 1997 (when Connesson hadn't even reached the age of thirty). The Cosmic Trilogy is a very entertaining piece, written to please and aurally tickle a wide audience, testifying of excellent craftsmanship and a great sensitivity to orchestral colour. The fourth and last piece on this disc is `The Shining One', a condensed piano concerto barely lasting 9 minutes. Stylistically and thematically it fits well with the Trilogy: it's a sparkling fantasia based on a character from an early fantasy novel.