Threnody

Press quotes

“Addict strikes me as some of the best music on the disc, especially the passages in which the computer-altered piano sonorities are in the foreground ... Harvey's disc functions as one big piece (no mean feat, given that it involves the works of seven composers). The gaps between the works and movements are minimal so that the pieces tend to run into each other, and the music is distributed so as to allow a single shape to emerge. The first four of Vine's Five Bagatelles are second on the disc, but the fifth – which gives the disc its title – is placed last. Harvey's Addict which is the penultimate work, functions as the CD's climax, not only in terms of its raw energy and extended sound world, but also because the computer music contains references to other music already heard on the disc.”

— Andrew Ford, 24 Hours (ABC)

“Harvey's own works are the best-sounding ones ... Toccata DNA is written in the old developing variations technique. Its supreme lightness comes from germ cells ... This is fast, flashy and good music that deserves more exposure. The same goes for Addict, for piano and what sounds like live electronics ... The talented Harvey turns in truly fantastic performances of all this difficult music.”

— Lyle Chan, Soundscapes

“Re-mastered by the indispensable Martin Wright, this CD underlines with pretty heavy scoring the debt that Australian music owes to Harvey, whose dedication to the local product (both the significant and the not-so-remarkable) has remained unswerving across his long, seemingly tireless career. All these pieces occupy a compressed compositional time-span, testament to the performer’s intense curatorship as well as demonstrating a sudden temporal rush to the Australian compositional head/brain from composers both well-known and obscure. The recording is well worth obtaining as a witness to Harvey’s unfailing musicianship as well as a document of this country’s (well, Melbourne’s, mainly) aggressively active music scene and the wealth of talent at work in it across these few years.”

— Clive O'Connell, O'Connell the Music