CCC 073 - Dirk Brossé

Belgian composer and conductor Dirk Brossé is the focus of this installment of the Consonant Classical Challenge. Brossé is a prolific composer of both classical and film music. Brossé is very much a tonal composer, and one who's not afraid of emotion. His works crackle with youthful energy, and there's nothing circumspect about the emotive nature of his work.

The Milestone Overture is a short, cheery work full of contemporary rhythms and harmonies. And yet it's also a welcoming and accessible piece of music, too. Brossé knows how to communicate with an audience.

 

Brossé is currently the music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. This video of his work SIRE shows Brossé conducting his own music. SIRE is a more adventuresome, with highly chromatic passages blending one into the other. And yet, it's still fairly easy to hear the solid tonal foundation on which everything rests.


Daens is an heroic-sounding work that perhaps owes something to Brossé's movie scores. Nevertheless, it's evocative music that's solidly constructed, and entirely appropriate for the concert hall.



Brossés Elegy for cello and orchestra showcases the solo instrument with a luscious, expressive melody, supported by rich harmonic textures. It's not clear to me why this work isn't better known.


Dirk Brossé would seem to be the perfect candidate to revitalize concert hall attendance. His music is both distinctive and traditionally based, without being either outr&eactue; or clich&eactue;. I'd like to hear more by this composer. Would that it were available! Perhaps the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia will tour the US...

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A Portrait In Music