If you enjoy the music of Terry Riley, John Adams, Steve Reich, et al. In other words, minimalism with a twist, or in this case dramatic minimalism, then you will instantly relate and identify with the music of Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy, who has written works for Dawn Upshaw, the Kronos Quartet, etc ... This latest work was commissioned by Alarm Will Sound, an edgy 20-member orchestra commited to the performance of innovative, up-and-coming composers. The Hunger is a cantata for soprano, sean-nos (old style) singer, and orchestra, with a text based on the Great Irish Famine of 1845-52.

Soprano Katherine Manley sings the role of Asenath Nicholson who in 1851 wrote a book documenting her first-hand witness encounter with the famine. Tenor Iarla O'Lionaird sings the role of a fictitious Irish old man. The drama revolves around this catastrophe aggravated by the catholic clergy's disregard of the problem, combined with the government's ongoing export of crops. All this makes for a dramatic musical retelling of the needless suffering many Irish farmers, and immigrants to America endured at the hands of the powers that be.

The booklet notes explain that The Hunger exists in an extended version for stage, but that this recording presents the concert version which focuses on the narrative between Asenath Nicholson and the dying man, who like Sisyphus, kept at his task of asking for relief, despite the futility of it all. Even if minimalism doesn't quite strike your fancy, the forces involved in this production are so attuned to the subject matter, and project the weight of it all so well, that it actually enhances the music's emotive power.