Ireland's
Donnacha Dennehy
may have come closer than any other composer to bridging the gap between modernist composition and crossover minimalism. On
Land of Winter
(the title comes from the meaning of Hibernia, the Roman name for Ireland, which is actually a distortion of the names they were working from), he offers a 12-section work, one for each month, on the venerable theme of the seasons of the year. Anyone can appreciate the contrasts here between winter storms and summer doldrums, but
Dennehy
invests this structure with largely atonal harmonies and a good deal of structural complexity. Overtones lurk in the music and are especially audible at the solstices and equinoxes, a delightful effect. The sequence starts with December, and a
Bach
Advent chorale appears intermittently in the music, making the late 2024 release of this album opportune. Dennehy uses a lot of exacting wind writing that is ideally suited to the talents of the large chamber ensemble
Alarm Will Sound
, which has championed
's music and released several albums' worth of it, and its conductor,
Alan Pierson
. In addition to making a good introduction to
's music, this release can serve as a memorial to the great producer
Adam Abeshouse
, who passed in 2024. This must have been one of the last projects he worked on, and the sound from the Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago is superb, with the significance of the high wind lines fully clarified. ~ James Manheim