“Pratt handed each of his composers some lines from Eliot’s poem as a jumping-off point. Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds, which opens the album, already has a life of its own — Pratt has performed the work with 30 orchestras since he debuted it in the spring of 2022, a rare feat of visibility for such a new piece. Montgomery’s music amounts to a miniature piano concerto that plays with opposites, deploying new harmonies within old structures. That structure allows Pratt an improvised cadenza where, in one passage, he literally leans into the piano to pluck notes.”
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