Arnold Dreyblatt: The Orchestra of Excited Strings

Selections from two Arnold Dreyblatt collections with his ensemble the Orchestra of Excited Strings, The Adding Machine and Animal Magnetism. The group utilizes a set of adapted and extended instruments in order to accommodate Dreyblatt’s just intonation tuning scheme. Minimalist rock or rock minimalism, mystical harmonies, delicious timbres, totally unique.

From a review in Dusted:



A composer of stature, Dreyblatt has charted his own unique course in modern classical music. Often characterized as the most rock-oriented of American minimalists, his work with the Orchestra of Excited Strings does justice to the moniker, in as much as the paradox is even feasible. There is a driving force to The Adding Machine, with nods to blues and rock traditions, and melodic progression is evident throughout, if heavily syncopated. Still, tempo changes and stubborn breakbeats are primarily responsible for the shifting pace within the pieces, which could only sufficiently be described as joltingly ambient. The tone is militant but never abrasive, the seemingly rigid instrumental elements of the ensemble quickly giving way to the slipstream of their own ephemera in the manner of a lulling kaleidoscopic vision. (59 minutes)

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