Paul Desenne’s music has been performed by top orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic. Resident composer of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, Dudamel and other...

Paul Desenne’s music has been performed by top orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic. Resident composer of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, Dudamel and other leading conductors and soloists champion his refined and unique components, with Two Seasons of the Caribbean Tropics, the Boston Music Intelligencer, remarked “one can add the name of Paul Desenne (1959-) to the list of Latino composers such as Ginastera, Piazzola, and Golijov that entertainingly straddle hot and cold blooded miens of New Spain and Old Europe. Certainly not all composers of weather programmed works allude to Vivaldi’s Seasons, but this one surely did in something of an apotheosis of the Venetian’s rhetoric.” “The rainy season…can be extremely annoying…and the dry season can be just as devastating, when nature’s territory shrinks in agony,” Desenne tell us. His “injection of Caribbean music and intense rhythmic treatment” make for a spicy cauldron where Vivaldi bubbles up one minute and double troubles of Gottschalk and Piazzola the next. Unitas Ensemble founder, Lina Gonzalez presided over this Ivesian plum pudding with as much geniality as PDQ Bach. But very much her own were lightning changes of tempo, meter and affect all cued and shaped to a fare-the-well. Fronted by violinist Saul Bitran’s fabulously over-the-top concerto expressiveness, the eager and responsive players give us half an hour of Vivaldi Furioso and Tremolo Agitato in a facetious but affectionate “Venetian Jam session.” The release includes the most idiomatic and original version of Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) with Unitas and Grammy Award Winner Cuarteto Latinoamericano.