Until dawn

What Thomas Wally, born in Vienna in 1981, composes and what the much-lauded Mondrian Ensemble wondrously performs on this first portrait album of the composer, might herald the dawn – or rather, the daybreak – of the latest music. So much individual voice and character can be discerned in the pieces from the past decade – including two piano quartets, a string trio, and a fifteen-minute violin solo – as well as a great spirit of experimentation and a striving for freedom, all with maximum conceptual seriousness. One hears in these compositions playful curiosity paired with deep knowledge, wealth of detail and breadth of vision, poetry and plain speaking. In this way and in many other ways, the music of Thomas Wally is "experiential, indeed at times tangibly graspable," as the renowned Swiss composer colleague Dieter Ammann notes appreciatively in the liner notes.