Yet the picture-book atmosphere is periodically disrupted by harsh timbres, rumblings of dissonance, engulfing masses of tone.
Mostly, though, the works seemed shopworn, a quality most clearly manifest in the quartet's too frequently harsh timbres.
The titles give a sense of the sound: "Twill by Twilight," "Toward the Sea," "How Slow the Wind". Yet the picture-book atmosphere is periodically disrupted by harsh timbres, rumblings of dissonance, engulfing masses of tone.
Any New York-centric thinking will be challenged by the Dutch ensemble Nieuw Amsterdams Peil, the Mexican group Onix Ensamble, and the Los Angeles collective wild Up — whose favored composers tend to sway between sweet and harsh timbres, with improvisation bridging the gap.
And suddenly the harsh, fortissimo timbres dropped out, leaving only soft-edged sounds that morphed into gentle bell tones at the work's end.
Mr. Sagala's language is rugged but not harsh, and the timbres and gestures he used here — bent pitches, quarter tones, juxtapositions of introspection and explosiveness — yielded an undeniably dramatic sound world.
Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer pioneered thrash metal, distinguished by its fast tempos, harsh vocal and guitar timbres, aggressiveness, and critical or sarcastic lyrics.
The scores are interspersed with harsh, jarring gestures, often produced through distortions of conventional timbre: hard bowing near the bridge of a string instrument, crashing clusters on the piano, multiphonics in the winds (multiple tones generated by alternative fingerings or by singing while playing).
The timbre of her voice abruptly shifted from its usual friendly giggly lilt to a harsh bark.
"Timbre," corrects Boyle immediately.
