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Missy Mazzoli – Dark With Excessive Bright I read in a recent interview that Mazzoli, a composer who has crossed many boundaries, particularly between chamber music and indie rock, now primarily considers herself an operatic composer. And she has had a great deal of success in that arena, including a commission from the big Kahuna, the Metropolitan Opera – not normally a friendly place for contemporary music, or female composers for that matter. But while applauding those inroads, I didn’t realize that there had never been a portrait album of her orchestral work. So this album, which collects five pieces of varying vintage is, to paraphrase Pusha-T, kind of like a big deal.

Such was my anticipation that at first I wasn’t feeling it. But a concentrated listen with my good headphones (Grados, if you must know) allowed me to penetrate the surface tension of the title piece, a concerto for violin and orchestra, played here with assured flair by Peter Herresthal with the Bergen Philharmonic led by James Gaffigan. With its lush bed of strings and often piercing writing for the soloist, it has an inherent drama that has always been a part of her music – but time in the opera house seems to have honed it to a fine point. Her experience working with chamber-pop band Victoire may have also helped her find the tools to arrange the piece for amplified violin and string quartet in version requested by Herresthal and included here.

Even with two versions of Dark and a new recording of Vespers For Violin, originally recorded by Olivia De Prato on Streya in 2018, there’s still plenty of variety here. Sinfonia (For Orbiting Spheres), the first of three pieces performed by the Arctic Philharmonic with Tim Weiss at the helm, is starlit and filled with textural invention. A strain of Americana of the Copland variety emerges from These Worlds In Us in winning fashion amidst the mysterious glissandi. Orpheus Undone has perhaps the most inventive orchestration of the lot, with Mazzoli reveling in percussion and brass. I’m not surprised to learn it was based on a ballet score from 2019 as it is often rhythmic and has a strong narrative thrust. Ultimately, Mazzoli is a story teller, whether in the opera house or not – and these are some of her finest tales yet.