In the music of Derek Bermel, familiar oppositions – between classical and vernacular, comic and serious, visceral and cerebral – start to break down. In Intonations (2016) for string quartet, a series of ragged chords, like the sound of someone blowing idly on a harmonica, is taken apart, reassembled, and woven into a web of dazzlingly ornate counterpoint. In A Short History of the Universe (as related by Nima Arkani-Hamed) (2013), a raucous, jazzy glissando becomes the unlikely basis of meditation on cosmology and the nature of time. The music on this album is full of such moments of strange alchemy, in which seemingly antithetical qualities merge and transform each other unpredictably.Purchase the music (without talk) at:Derek Bermel (classicalsavings.com)Your purchase helps to support our show! Classical Music Discoveries is sponsored by La Musica International Chamber Music Festival and Uber. @CMDHedgecock#ClassicalMusicDiscoveries #KeepClassicalMusicAlive#LaMusicaFestival #CMDGrandOperaCompanyofVenice #CMDParisPhilharmonicinOrléans#CMDGermanOperaCompanyofBerlin#CMDGrandOperaCompanyofBarcelonaSpain#ClassicalMusicLivesOn#Uber Please consider supporting our show, thank you!http://www.classicalsavings.com/donate.html [email protected] This album is broadcasted with the permission of Crossover Media Music Promotion (Zachary Swanson and Amanda Bloom).