December 15, 2011

 

If you couldn’t tell by the title, here cellist Matt Haimovitz obsessively contemplates the future of classical music. This recording is for those who “mix Wagner with lady Gaga on their iPods.” Haimovitz’s collaboration with pianist Christopher O’Riley doesn’t need to rely on an mp3 player for high-contrast juxtapositions; he intersperses fragments of a forcefully contemporary retooling of Bernard Herrmann’s score to Vertigo with Stravinsky, Arcade Fire and Blonde Redhead. It’s ambitious, frenetic and marvelously engaging.

View at Rhapsody