Michael Hersch — Across..In Grief And Detail

Across..In Grief And Detail features three pieces by American composer Michael Hersch. His work here is a tense, searing, and often jarring take on modern classical composition, with brief flurries of grace & grander. Two of the works feature uneasy to intense soprano, but all three highlight a composer who likes to create jarring and unpredictable work.

Hersch has been creating work since the early 1990’s- taking chamber, opera, large ensemble, solo, and vocal work. The pieces featured here date from between 2019 and 2022.

We open with “Sapped From Me Broke” which is for soprano, violin, and bassoon. The three-track piece is all about hauntingly baying -to- shrill vocalising, and angular droning to searing horn/ string work. The use of sudden, loud and jarring volume is used to great effect here, and even though there are moments of break/ silence, or a trip in tone, the feeling of tensioned unease remains firm throughout.

Next, we have the 2022 title track, which is for violin and bassoon-it’s spread over ten tracks- with a total runtime of just over twenty-six minutes. It’s largely a fairly manic and seesaw-searing work- though there are moments of simmering grace. It mainly revolves around silence, sour lull, and sudden bursts of loud string & horn work.

Finally, we have “Miserer Mei Domine”; this is for soprano, violin, and bassoon. It runs at just over eleven and a half minutes, and initially it seems it’s going to be more graceful & elegant. With soaring & lightly warbling vocals, and sweeping up & down horn/ string work. But fairly quickly the pace of the whole thing picks up to create a rather urgent oscillating quality- which at points almost sounds like it’s been sped up in the recording process, though I’m sure this is probably a sonic illusion.

Across..In Grief And Detail throws the listener into a tense and searing soundscape of horn, string, and vocal work. Yes, there are moments of grandeur & grace, but it’s got to be searched for.