A work of paradoxes, it seeks to create order and beauty out of chaos. Its opening phrases heave upwards over a low percussive rumble, before brass chords eventually anchor the music in rhythmic inexorability. At its centre is a broad cello melody of astonishing directness, but its contours and harmonies are repeatedly pulled out of shape by a dissonant countermelody on the upper strings.
In its relatively brief span, Metacosmos reaches far, exploring the balance between beauty and chaos, and the metaphorical force of falling into a black hole. With strange, unearthly sounds such as bowed gong edges, drum scrapings and sounds of breath, there is a sense of mystery and danger, and whenever fragments of a more harmonious melody are heard, they are on shaky ground, the strings in particular sliding and slipping away beneath any consonant harmony.... This is a remarkable piece, showing such command of large orchestral forces, and the final slide upwards, leaving a single violin hanging in the air, was unsettlingly moving.
Thorvaldsdottir’s command of a large orchestra is hugely impressive, and she conjures up myriad special effects, captured in all their variety and delicacy by Gilbert and the orchestra.
The opening soundscapes are bare and desolate, low pulsating drones punctuated by the occasional percussive thuds, as well as sundry sighs, groans and sul ponticellowhisperings. ... [T]he score quickly established itself as a thing of imaginatively varied textures and rhythms: the former often headily beautiful, the latter occasional brutal. ... [Metacosmos] offered moments of disarming beauty towards its close as we heard snatches of warmly melodic material, ideas beyond our reach dimly recollected in the fading of the light, before everything floated off into nothingness.
With each work, Salonen seemed intent on exploring the sonic possibilities in this hall, and the orchestra responded with alert, fully engaged performances. That was certainly true in the strikingly gorgeous opening performance of “METACOSMOS,” which marked the West Coast premiere of Thorvaldsdottir’s brilliantly sculpted score (last year, Salonen conducted the New York Philharmonic in the work’s world premiere.). The Icelandic composer, who has described the work as an attempt to evoke “the natural balance between beauty and chaos,” establishes an elemental feel in the opening measures, as low strings and percussion create a primal, almost subterranean sound. Brass, strings, and woodwinds join in, reinforcing the music’s rhythmic structure. The effect suggests deep respirations.
Violins contribute a wistful melody, and a kind of earthy dance ensues; as the textures thicken, something massive seems to be born. Salonen conducted with a precise, tightly coiled rhythmic pulse, and the results were nothing short of gripping. As one listener observed, we can only hope for more of Thorvaldsdottir’s music in the seasons to come.
Metacosmos, a gorgeous and engrossing tone poem by the 41-year-old Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, proved to be one of those creations whose philosophical aspects are helpful but not essential to understanding. Over some 15 minutes of delicate, gauzy orchestral landscape punctuated by brusque rhythmic interpolations, Thorvaldsdottir creates a series of vivid scenes – each one phasing into the next as if in some kind of phantasmagoria. There is something ideological at work here, no doubt, but often it’s enough just to marvel at the care and inventiveness of Thorvaldsdottir’s fertile imagination — the long-breathed patience with which the piece’s opening minutes establish a sense of scale, the fervor of the clomping dance at the piece’s midpoint, and especially the shamelessly beautiful minor-key rhapsody that draws a listener in not once but twice, as if to say, “You thought I was kidding, but no, I mean this sincerely. This is not a piece which places much emphasis on incident; the point is not to tell a story (Sibelius handled that part of the evening) but to chart an expressive journey from the rumbling low bass note that begins the proceedings to the ethereal high note from a solo violin that marks its close. Salonen conducted the world premiere of “Metacosmos” with the New York Philharmonic in April, and the performance — rapturous and elegantly wrought — was clearly meant to signal his artistic priorities. Also sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss’ broad and overambitious tone poem on philosophical themes, made a perfect companion piece to the Thorvaldsdottir. In fact, the melodic and formal echoes – the subterranean opening, the evanescent close, even the recurrence of some central motifs – made it seem a compulsory pairing.
Written for a large orchestra and taking full advantage of various timbral colorings, Metacosmos is an eerie, atmospheric piece, from its Rheingold-evoking initial pianissimo to a finale that might be considered serene if it wasn’t for all the equivocal harmonies one can perceive. Cues in this musical tapestry, superbly laid out by Salonen, are almost seamlessly passed from one group of instruments to another. Growing tensions between strings, winds and percussion take the listener on a voyage imbued with amazement but also angst…. In Metacosmos, Thorvaldsdóttir proves again to be an artist of deep originality.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Metacosmos made a powerful impression in its debut performance, evoking an enormous vista of space and time in a 12-minute span with broad, artfully blended strokes of orchestral color.
[Salonen] conducted the radiant premiere of a richly atmospheric piece by the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir. ... I was captivated by the intricacy of the sounds and colors. Ms. Thorvaldsdottir did indeed take us on a dark journey, episodic yet clear. ... During a few wistful moments, short melodic phrases in a natural minor scale sigh atop mellow harmonies. These seemingly conventional passages actually came across as reflective stops on the promised odyssey through chaos and beauty. ... At Geffen Hall, "Metacosmos” was the highlight.