Olga Neuwirth

Listening Guide. String Sounds. Olga Neuwirth, Settori (1999).

Olga Neuwirth is an Austrian composer born in Graz in 1968. Written in 1999, her settori is a taut work of wiry, piercing sounds from the string quartet. After the whorls of bowed tones at the beginning, our ears zoom in to the finely honed manipulation of the timbral landscape (overtones of Tristan Murail?) in the vast middle section of the piece where sul ponticello sounds predominate.