Megiddo - Sylvie Bodorova
Sylvie Bodorová wrote Megiddo in 2001, a work that owed its genesis to a visit the composer made to Israel when she was working on her excellent Judas Maccabeus. She was there to study aspects of ritual singing as well as particular approaches to melody and melismatic singing. Things start with a somewhat hieratic determination but the writing is splendidly refined, advancing by Seurat-like brushstrokes or more gaunt and sinewy 'pillars'. Throughout the ear is kept alive by her series of aural devices. Affecting lyricism, quiet and keening, occupies the slow movement; folkloric hues are not far away either though they are, it's true, sublimated. The piano here becomes ever more romantically effusive until the biting, terse end of the movement. The finale, Armagedon, is powerfully rhythmic and driving but ends with quiet reminiscence, as did the Fiala. ... Jonathan Woolf - MusicWeb
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