Album: Ivan Fedele, Mosaïque (Stradivarius)

There's a sense, in these four works by the Italian modernist Ivan Fedele, of music being tested to destruction, as the new is pursued beyond the bounds of beauty.

His "Concerto" for violin and orchestra opens with a big discordant cluster, signalling the testing time to come, before settling into a bruising battle which climaxes in electronic treatments transforming the violin with rock-band distortion, an idea as unsatisfying as it is dated. In "Mosaïque" itself, the five-string electric violin is featured across three parts like a bee buzzing in a jar. And in "L'orizzonte di Elettra", it's a relief when the animated violin rests, allowing calm percussion and foraging woodwind to colonise the space.

Download this: L'orizzonte di Elettra; Mosaïque