Stefano Gervasoni: Gramigna Divertimento Ensemble

Genre: Contemporary

Rating: 5/5 stars

Release Date: 13th May 2022

Gervasoni is an Italian composer who studied under Brian Ferneyhough and György Ligeti back in the 1990’s. Ferneyhough is the top dog of the New Complexity movement which takes more is more to probably the most extreme heights it has ever reached. If you’ve never done it, I recommend going on YouTube and watching his music unfold synchronized with the notation. It’s wild fun stuff. And of course Ligeti is Ligeti. On a sad but interesting sidenote, both his brother and father were murdered in death camps by the Nazis. Ligeti was (RIP 2006) deeply influenced by Schoenberg but ultimately he branched into all kinds of influences.

The music on Gramigna feels to me a lot like a mash up of Elliott Carter and Bartok. The composition style is mature and fully developed. It’s also expressive and pleasantly coherent even in its avant-garde ramblings. And of course, the presentation is flawless. The musicians themselves are fantastic. A list of music performed by the excellent Divertimento Ensemble can be found here: https://www.naxos.com/Bio/Person/Divertimento_Ensemble/155424