Man-o’-War; An Angel Serves A Small Breakfast; Winter Finding; Licht/ung

Rebecca Hirsch (violin), RTÉ NSO/Gerhard Markson, David Porcelijn, RTÉ lyric fm CD 126 ****

Ian Wilson's thrustingly aggressive Man-o'-War, commissioned for the 2001 BBC Proms, unleashes orchestral violence with the abandon of Edgard Varèse. Wilson throws in some microtonal writing for strings, and there's even a mysterious suggestion of a chorale at one point. The Paul Klee-inspired an angel serves a small breakfast, his second violin concerto, written for Rebecca Hirsch in 1999, presents a dreamy, fluttery, lightly soaring lyricism. Cy Twombly's Quattro Stagioni, refracted through poems by Lavinia Greenlaw, are behind the atmospheric, high contrasts of Winter Finding(2004-5). Shomei Tomatsu's 1961 photographs of atomic-bomb damaged Nagasaki gave rise to the threatening growls, shearing lines and lonely spaces of Licht/ung(2004). Strong performances from the NSO. See url.ie/57c6