The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic affected musicians in many different ways. Some gave virtual recitals over Zoom, others composed instrumental and chamber works for friends (such as Marcus Paus’s ‘Cabin Fever’ – Sheva, 5/22). For Israeli-American composer-violinist Avner Finberg – whose works range from instrumental solos and a violin sonata to a percussion quartet, orchestral works and opera – it was initially a fallow period where he found he could neither perform with other musicians nor compose for them. Over time, however, he was able to refocus, and one of the main results was a ‘concerto for one’, a musical contemplation (for himself to play) of the role of the musician separated from his (or her) audience.

The Four Seasons of Isolation – the title is the only ‘nod to Vivaldi’ – was written between the summer of 2020 and December 2021. Its four movements describe the progression of the pandemic across a timespan greater than a year, from its initial onset (‘Sirens’) through increased isolation (‘Echo Chamber’), the pangs of separation (‘The Ocean Between Us’) and the cautious re-emergence into a much-changed and changeable environment (‘In perpetuum’). The musical means deployed are isolationist; Finberg is accompanied by live electronics – no accompanist needed – involving music loops and pre-recorded material that give the impression, where needed, of the ghost of communal music-making. The effect is haunting, the embodiment of the dichotomy of being physically detached yet emotionally totally engaged in an experience everyone has shared.

The coupling is an earlier work of Finberg’s, his Music for a Reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’ (2017). Classified on Finberg’s website under ‘Opera and Musical Theater’, ‘melodrama’ would be nearer the mark. Finberg’s score is not so much musical accompaniment per se as side effects to the text. The music here resides primarily in Poe’s lines and Craig MacDonald’s marvellous rendition of them. With excellent sound engineered by Daniel Shores (The Four Seasons) and Nate Richardson (The Raven), this is an intriguing, entertaining and thought-provoking album.