ZACHARY WADSWORTH: THE FAR WEST

The HIV/AIDS battlefield has thrown up few more powerful artistic responses than Wadsworth’s settings of poetry by Tim Dlugos, who died in 1990, aged just 40, having studied for the Episcopalian priesthood. The tenor soloist carries much of the textual action, but Wadsworth has woven rich counterpoints (the ‘vines’ of Dlugos’s poetry) through the opening ‘October’ and the scarifying ‘Retrovir’, which is named after AZT therapy. And in the middle, title section, he creates musical equiva- lents to the idea of AIDS as a new frontier in American life. Luminous Voices do exactly what the name suggests. A moving, sometimes chastening experience.

BRIAN MORTON Read the full review on Agora Classica