Search - Meredith Monk :: Dolmen Music

By 1981, when Dolmen Music was released, Meredith Monk was already a seasoned composer, using voice as her main musical vehicle. Beyond categories like instrumental music, art songs, or opera, Monk's music pivots on extraordinary contrasts--leaps from mellifluous flow to staccato, and extreme register utterances. The shorter pieces on Dolmen Music have distinct art song-- or even pop--traces in their rolling piano figures and attention to melody. But the title suite is a generous reigning in of Robert Een's deliberate cello, Julius Eastman's colorful percussion, and an array of vocal tones that couple low, long bellows with short bursts of high, almost electronic-sounding palpitations. Monk has made vocal music without compare in this piece. -- Andrew Bartlett