The use of sleep and dreams as subject matter goes back centuries into the Western concert tradition, but composer
Jacob Muehlrad achieves a new level of specificity on this 2023 release, one of the few devoted purely to contemporary music on a major label that year. The title of the main work on the album,
REMS, stands for
Rapid Eye Movement Sleep, in which dreams and mental activity during sleep are at their most vivid. No one before
Muehlrad has attempted to capture the rapid-fire quality that images remembered from sleep sometimes have, and even listeners not generally sympathetic to contemporary orchestral music may find the work evocative. The work has a personal feel, with snatches of melody from
Muehlrad's own Jewish background (introduced effectively by the album's opening work,
Maggid, for solo Baroque cello), Indian ragas, microtonal playing, and more. A larger structure in this 25-minute work is provided by a middle section with a sensation of anxiety and stress (
Muehlrad apparently rejects the term "nightmare," but it may be apropos), and although the music is amorphous, one's attention does not flag; it has the strange logic of dreams. This recording was taken from the premiere performance of the work by the
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, which did well in difficult, unfamiliar music, and
Warner Classics also stepped up with excellent sound from the Konserthuset in Stockholm. A fresh take on a very old theme. ~ James Manheim
