serialist

Pieces by Ravel and Pablo de Sarasate shone as they should, and the evening’s unlikely centerpiece, Ginastera’s Violin Concerto, was a 30-minute fever dream of serialist fancies and ferocities.

Trained as a strict serialist, Saariaho was exposed in the early 1980s to the sonic haze of spectralist composers like Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey.

Daunted by the serialist compositional style that held sway in academia, Mr. Johnson turned to visual art.

His wife, Gertraud Cerha, a musician herself, whom he married in 1951, was the keyboard soloist in the 1960 premiere of a serialist piece for harpsichord and ensemble, “Relazioni fragili.”

But, ever curious, Lidholm didn’t stay a doctrinaire serialist for long, and the 18-minute “Poesis” is an exploration of elemental sound and stark drama without reliance on stylistic rules.