I'm listening to Arcana by Edgard Varèse. I like noise, er, organized sound as much as the next person but as orchestral music, this is not it. Is there some mystical or organic meaning I am missing? Anyway, here are some other points of view...
Terry Barfoot in a review of the Naxos recording comments on the performance "...the final climax erupts volcanically before subsiding."
Peter Grahame Woolf suggests on Classical Music Web:
Arcana (1927) is a music of sound, which determines structure through repetition and contrasts of rhythm and timbre, developing without any pre-imposed plan... But give your ears a break and don't play the CD straight through.
Frederick L. Kirshnit in a ConcertoNet review says:
A good performance of Arcana is truly an experience of primeval power, stirring racial memories of life in the ancient wilderness.
Elisabetta Brusa notes that Arcana was written only a year before Puccini's Turandot.
Amazon samples here, but for me, on to more approachable Varèse...
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