Golijov: Tenebrae

Golijov: Tenebrae

Our board member, Alex Simmons, recommends the Kronos Quartet recording of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Tenebrae.”   Alex first heard “Tenebrae” performed by the Franklin Pond Quartet.  Here is a quote from the composer:

“I wrote Tenebrae as a consequence of witnessing two contrasting realities in a short period of time in September 2000. I was in Israel at the start of the new wave of violence that is still continuing today, and a week later I took my son to the new planetarium in New York, where we could see the Earth as a beautiful blue dot in space. I wanted to write a piece that could be listened to from different perspectives. That is, if one chooses to listen to it “from afar”, the music would probably offer a “beautiful” surface but, from a metaphorically closer distance, one could hear that, beneath that surface, the music is full of pain.”