Edward, thanks for starting this thread. And very happy to know of the new Cypres recording. Even if it duplicates some of the rep on the Tzadik disc, Romitelli's work is worth hearing by different interpreters. (And I don't know Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles at all, nor the conductor, Dessay.)
The Talea Ensemble basically introduced me to his work; in the last few years, they performed Professor Bad Trip and An Index of Metals at the Bang on a Can marathon (roughly mid-June every year, held in the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan). Even in the woeful acoustic (think "giant glass atrium"), if you sit close to the stage the sound is not bad. But I think the group plans to repeat either or both of these in a better-sounding venue.
Romitelli isn't for every day (OK, who is?) but I find his unusual sound world completely fascinating. And if at times what you're hearing sounds improvised, if you look at a page of one of his scores, the precision in notating what he wants is immediately apparent.
--Bruce
I could believe the new Cypres disc will be worth having, even for those who have the Stradivarius disc with the excellent Peter Rundel, amongst others. Dessy did a good job with a regional Belgian orchestra of Scelsi's works for large string ensemble at a time when the composer badly needed the advocacy (he also conducted the Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles in the premiere of Romitelli's
Flowing down too slowIt doesn't surprise me that the scores are very detailed; it would not be surprising if some of Grisey's thoroughness rubbed off on Romitelli while he was studying with the Frenchman (to me, Grisey is one of very few influences that are clear in Romitelli's work; Vivier also seems close to the spirit of the works for strings in particular). But of course Romitelli took off in a very distinct direction from that particular starting point.
Looking at the work list for Romitelli at IRCAM (
http://brahms.ircam.fr/fausto-romitelli#work_by_date), it seems like with these new releases the majority of his published work is now out on CD. A couple of useful addenda of otherwise unrecorded works:
The early (1992-93)
Mediterraneo I & II are on one of Stradivarius'
Musica Milano Festival live CDs:
and the Ensemble Phoenix Basel have recorded
Cupio dissolvi, though I'm not sure how much distribution that CD has. (There's a probably-not-very-legit MP3 of the premiere of that work to be found at
http://classical-music-online.net/en/composer/Romitelli/6018, for those who like internet recordings of dubious provenance, along with one of the early guitar work
Simmetrie d'oggetti, as well as more easily found material.)
