Inventa Diaboli

Inventa Diaboli was written especially for violist Cynthia Phelps and cellist Janet Horvath, and dedicated to Richard M. Cisek on the occasion of his retirement as president of the Minnesota Orchestral Association in November 1990. From a review by Michael Anthony in the Minneapolis Star/Tribune (7/10/90): Tartaglia’s ‘diabolic inventions’ are true to their name: macabre thoughts set down in wry, witty fashion. After the statement of an insistent theme and a buildup to a scherzo that sounds vaguely Russian, the music deconstructs, like the bones of a dancing skeleton, then reassembles, merging eventually with the ‘Dies Irae,’ the old Latin hymn about Judgment Day from the mass for the dead.”