Tessellatum is an album and a film, with music composed by Donnacha Dennehy and animation by Steven Mertens, performed by violist Nadia Sirota and viola da gamba player Liam Byrne. The film and the music both work with the idea of man vs. nature. Steven Mertens’ electric animation toggles back and forth between man-made geometric perfection and the natural oddness of the deep ocean. Donnacha Dennehy’s addictive timbres move between tuning systems created by humans and the ones found in natural resonance. As a result, the two works of art support and enhance each other, using the same form and structure to create an incredibly moving work of art.
There are several reasons to own this Vox Box 2CD set. For the first, it includes five great violin concertos in some of the very best performances in their discography. For the second, Ivry Gitlis (born 1922) is a great living violinist and these recordings made in early 1950s show his art in the best way, when Ivry's violin sounded powerful and brilliant.
Whenever I went to Bruce Broughton's house high up in the Hollywood hills, to hear something he was working on, he would prepare me with all kinds of disclaimers about how it wasn't going to sound very good, that it was just a "sketch," that the orchestration would do so much to enhance it … then he would proceed to play me the most beautiful, romantic melody-always fabulous, and always exactly the tone and mood I needed for the movie.
Maybe the music did sound better with an orchestra, but Bruce is so talented, and his music is so lyrical and beautiful, to me it sounds just as great when I'm humming it to myself walking out of the theater.
In addition, Bruce is the nicest, most self-effacing gentleman I have met, and had a' calming influence that spread over a frantic movie-making process