The Washington Post has reviewed a handful of notable new albums by artists with "the makeup of a chamber ensemble, the mind-set of a rock band"---the sort for which "Kronos Quartet paved the way." Kronos's latest, The Cusp of Magic, is "at turns luminous, frightening and unbearably lovely." It's music that "shimmers with the elusive delicacy of a dream ... and evokes those transitional moments in life when the sharp edges of reality become blurred, and anything seems possible."
The Washington Post has reviewed a handful of notable new albums by artists with "the makeup of a chamber ensemble, the mind-set of a rock band"---the sort for which "Kronos Quartet paved the way," in the words of Post critic Anne Midgette. The Quartet's latest Nonesuch release is the premiere recording, with pipa player Wu Man, of Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic, which Midgette's colleague Stephen Brookes calls "at turns luminous, frightening and unbearably lovely." It's music, he says, that "shimmers with the elusive delicacy of a dream ... and evokes those transitional moments in life when the sharp edges of reality become blurred, and anything seems possible."
Brookes finds Riley's composition "magical," explaining:
You have the sense of being swept into a surging ocean of memory, where lullabies float up over mysterious drones, nervous waltzes twist suddenly into quirky little marches, and nothing is ever quite what it seems ... Riley's touch remains both sure and deft throughout, and the effect is powerful.
To read the complete review, visit washingtonpost.com.
