The remainder of undun speaks through the instrumentals, where innocent pianos and violins turn into reckless percussions that fade into searing strings suggesting Redford has died.
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The album has an instrumental coda… an elegiac string quartet and a last dissonant piano chord, an unpeaceful final rest.
Undun is also a mirror held up to present-day America, where ambitions are more likely to die than prosper. It's a downer, but timely and affecting, with moments of beauty.
A gorgeous neo-classical suite closes the album… If an album can be both chilling and beautiful at once, "Undun" is it.
“All told, the story undun tells is sometimes chilling, often thrilling, and always illuminating.”
“The Roots’ 13th release is a concept album with a bravura twist: It narrates the story of a bootstrapping hustler in reverse, from death to birth.“
“The Roots' 13th album, which includes a brief, four-part orchestral suite that builds off a Sufjan Stevens piece, is definitely their most downbeat.“
Finally, credits roll over a sublime string quartet, mercifully for Black Thought's black thoughts — at least for a moment, before ?uestlove's meticulously arranged strings are silenced by the chilling, deathly growl of a struck piano.
Dorman has an eclectic approach—borrowing elements from jazz, pop, and Middle Eastern musical idioms—that makes his music surprisingly accessible.
The performances by the superb soloists and hair-trigger orchestra are stunning. Grab this and enjoy.
While no one will mistake it for the mature voice found in the Mandolin Concerto, the youthful exuberance of the Piano Concerto is frequently charming.
For all their eclecticism, these pieces reveal a strong common profile—with tragic ferocity lurking under the sparkling surfaces.
The music of Israeli composer Avner Dorman is so vivacious and so technically proficient that it’s hard to resist… most rewarding is the Mandolin Concerto, which fuses Baroque and Middle Eastern gestures in unusual ways, and which ends with a surprising flourish.
This wonderful program of three concertos and one concerto grosso, all beautifully performed and recorded, is nearly enough to restore the confidence of the most hardened pessimist in the future of classical music.
Many will respond to the joyousness of the writing and youthful enthusiasm of the performances on offer.
The playing of the Metropolis Ensemble led by Andrew Cyr is excellent: sensitive, supportive, very accurate and finely balanced, with a lot of spirit.
Avner Dorman writes with an omnivorous eclecticism that makes his music on Concertos both accessible and impossible to pigeonhole.
“This is really good stuff, a genuine discovery, beautifully played and excellently engineered. It will make you feel good about the future of contemporary Classical music.”
Call it a guilty pleasure, but it’s great fun and filled with a youthful joy of music making. Pianist Eliran Avni is sensational.
Lawson Taitte of the Dallas Morning News reviewed the new Metropolis Ensemble album Avner Dorman’s Concertos: “…These pieces reveal a strong common profile with tragic ferocity lurking under the sparkling surfaces.” Read the article…