Xenakis: Pléïades
Domenico Melchiorre
With percussionists on specially-designed metal instruments moving in and out of sync, this is an abrasive listen at times. The movement with drums is much more meditative.
Xenakis: Pléïades
Domenico Melchiorre
Purchase product
With percussionists on specially-designed metal instruments moving in and out of sync, this is an abrasive listen at times. The movement with drums is much more meditative.
About
Iannis Xenakis invented his own instruments for Les Pléiades, a suggestive, interstellar work for percussion ensemble. And once again the Ensemble DeciBells commissioned their very own grandiose musical instruments for their outstanding recording of this work. The musicians led by Basel solo timpanist Domenico Melchiorre play the shimmering music, which fuses the boundaries between individual instrument, ensemble, and listener on a dizzying scale.
Awards and reviews
April 2019
With percussionists on specially-designed metal instruments moving in and out of sync, this is an abrasive listen at times. The movement with drums is much more meditative.
April 2019
This new recording by the Basel-based group DeciBells is notable for its having used newly prepared ‘sixxen’; the 19 metal bars of varying frequency, which gives their vital contribution audibly greater richness and subtlety. Add to this the use of skin rather than plastic heads on the drums and the music’s expressive range is opened out accordingly.
March 2019
The recording is superb and allows the listener to hear the myriad of detail presented in this score.
