The piece builds to a meter-fracturing dance, then ends quizzically, with subdued, piercing harmonies for the cello and a wistful fiddle tune.
The flute's skittish riffs and winding lyrical lines sometimes ignite agitated orchestral responses; at other times they are cushioned by subdued, sustained harmonies.
Winemaking varies, with some wines matured in large casks, with others in barriques, but all of the wines are subdued with lovely harmony; as the fruit, and not wood notes take center stage.
The madrigals show his new manner most clearly: an elegant and pliable vocal line, scrupulously following the inflections of the words and heightened by affective embellishments, stands out against a subdued chordal accompaniment in diatonic harmony improvised from the newly invented basso continuo.
These are wines with excellent ripeness, subdued wood notes and exquisite harmony.
Textural details, especially softer ones, like the astringent harmonies of the subdued woodwinds or the muted trumpets in the ruminative introduction to Part 2, came through acutely.
A confiding aria that Meg (the dusky mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato) sings about the inevitable passages of time, "Things Change, Jo," is lovely, lyrically subdued with hazy and plaintive chromatic harmony.
The strings of the orchestra play a deep, heaving line, as winds and brass lace the music with piercing harmonies, over which the subdued chorus sings the Latin text almost like an intonation.
The melody is almost cushioned by the orchestra, which provides a subdued sonic stew of droning pedal tones, pungent harmonies, rippling rhythmic figures and strange bird calls.
The mezzo-soprano's first lines ("On the day the world ends/A bee circles a clover,") are sung in subdued, observant tones, enshrouded by glowing, pungent orchestral harmonies that lend nervous perplexity to the contemplative mood.
"Fey" ("Leaf"), with lyrics about a mother mourning the absence of a son deported for political offenses, set a melodic alto lament far above a subdued male bass riff, with other women's voices cascading into harmonies in the lonely space between between.
