The Venetian Concertos

David Chesky’s Venetian Concertos take the architecture of the Baroque concerto grosso into the 21st century, built on counterpoint rather than melody over accompaniment. Multiple independent voices collide, separate, answer one another and converge. The harmonic language is thoroughly modern, with chromatic harmony shaped by jazz and bebop, and the lines move with the speed, angularity and rhythmic displacement of jazz improvisation. The result is dense and complex but also exhilarating, music rigorously organized yet full of spontaneous energy. The original 2016 recording drew praise from critics for its “athleticism, velocity and finesse,” and one described it as taking the Baroque form “into the 21st century.”

This new recording rescores and reimagines all four concertos. The flute soloist of the original has been replaced by solo violin, and the orchestra has been cut to a chamber string ensemble: four first violins, four second violins, four violas, two cellos and double bass. With fewer players, the contrapuntal lines become more transparent, and Chesky has relaxed some tempi to let the inner voices breathe. Every player is exposed, so the Metronome Chamber Orchestra’s young virtuosos need both a soloist’s independence and a chamber musician’s discipline. Recorded in Mega-Dimensional Sound at The Hirsch Center in New York, these are four contemporary concertos using an ancient principle: independent voices in continuous conversation.

Metronome Chamber Orchestra