Album: Sonia Wider-Atherton, Vita: Monteverdi/Scelsi (Naïve)

This is a strange combination of apparently contrasting composers' styles, the formal but highly emotional lines of Monteverdi's 16th-century madrigals, transcribed for cello trio, interspersed with the more austere, angular extemporisations of Scelsi's modernist "Trilogy" for solo cello.

It's a testing alliance: at times, the main connection appears to be the sombre tone shared by both composers. To link them more securely, Wieder-Atherton has devised a narrative based around the character of Angioletta – after whom the longest and most satisfying of the madrigals was named – charting her path from infancy to an old age starkly depicted in the lowering clouds of Scelsi's "Ygghur I". An intriguing exercise, but not for the faint-hearted.

DOWNLOAD THIS Mentre vaga Angioletta; Triphon III; Altri canti d'amor