Mattinglys score does nothing but linger, luxuriating in the good and the bad, the spiritual and the doubtful, and above all the ecstatic [he]has internalized a wealth of musical stylesBut Mattinglydoesntquote. Instead, his influences surface subtly, abstracted in, say, a rhythmic gesture. In the end, the language is entirely his own.– New York Times

Dylan Mattingly is a true original whose music fills the listener with a sense of overflowing abundance. Dylans default mode is intense, ecstatic: his music clangs and chimes, and its resonances seem to linger in the ear long after the physical sound ceases. Events can feel like they’re moving in slow sync with the rhythms of the celestial orbs but then will break out into some euphoric pagan jig. Hes a genuine American Maverick in the true sense of the term. John Adams

Nonesuch Records releases The Wild Heart, the label debut from composer Dylan Mattingly, The Wild Heart, performed by Contemporaneous with conductor David Bloom and vocal soloist Iarla Lionird.The vinyl edition features twomovements – Ulysses Dances and Last Dance – from the five-movement work The Transmutation Notebooks, as well asSuntLacrimaeRerum (these are the tears of things). (The CD and digital formats feature all five moments of The Transmutation Notebooksas well asSuntLacrimaeRerum (these are the tears of things).)

The two pieces on this album sprang from Mattinglys six-hour epic composition History of Life, which, as Jake Wilder-Smith says in his album liner note, weaves together a wide array of traditions, styles, and source materials, chief among them Homers Odyssey and Charles Darwins account of his five-year expedition aboard the HMS Beagle. The Transmutation Notebooks takes its name from Darwins journals of his travels along the coast of South America. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (these are the tears of things) was written during the first year of the pandemic, while wildfires blazed in Mattinglys native California.

Mattingly says, The goal of my music is to give us an experience of the things we love most about being alive in this world, in a way that reminds us how damn beautiful they are and how much we can love. He continues, We dont have a lot of opportunity in life (or in art) to focus on, to yell for joy about, the things we really love about this world. This music tries to give us that chance as clearly and strongly as possible, to remind us that this is worth it, to allow us to be swept over by the massive force of waves, to be small in the face of a massive, beautiful universe.

Speaking of his unique compositional style, the composer says, everything on this album has at least one re-tuned piano, and the harp is re-tuned in The Transmutation Notebooks, too. Many of the notes have literally never been heard before. But because theyre on these instruments where we expect the tuning to be fixed, like a piano, our brain instantly accepts them, and says, OK, I guess this is the world. In that instant act of transformation, your brain tells you that youre hearing something entirely new, that youre in an alien world.Thatputs us in this state of mind where we hear everything new.So then the music givesusthe things we all love – I, IV, V chords(the music thats at the heart of everything, the harmonic language we were born into) – but in this state of receptivity,we hear it as if for the first time.Thethings we love so much about the world feel suddenly present and alive, not a reference to some other time,or thousand times,weveheard them, but joyfully new.

Iarla Lionird – one of the leading contemporary vocalists of the traditionalseannsIrishsong style – is featured on two movements fromThe TransmutationNotebooks.(Mattingly firstheard the singer on Donnacha Dennehys Nonesuch recording ofGragusBas).Mattingly considers Lionirdto be a modern-day Homeric bard, singing in an imagined tradition of oral epic, as if it had evolved continuously over 2700 years.

Mattingly began work on Sunt Lacrimae Rerum in the fall of 2020, as he looked out on a smoke-darkened day during the already fraught Covid period. He thought of Aeneas lines from Homers The Aeneid: sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. / Solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fama salutem. (These are the tears of things, the stuff of lives touches my soul. / Release your fear: our story carries some salvation.) Wilder-Smith says, In these ancient lines, the composer recognized a statement of profound optimism in the face of personal and collective loss. So while Sunt Lacrimae Rerum may have emerged in a moment of great loss and uncertainty, it is no elegy it strives to sound out a world not yet in existence, released from the haze of present anxieties and past defeats.

Dylan Mattinglyis a composer who creates musicthatoffers ecstatic, transformative experience. Many ofhisprojects exist on a massive scale, the results ofhispursuit of projectsfromthe wild reaches ofhisimagination. This practice was informed by the decade-long process of creating, developing, and bringing to lifeStranger Love,hissix-hour opera,commissioned by the LA Phil, thatpremieredin2023 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.Mattinglys musicalsohas been commissioned and performed by the Ojai Music Festival, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the Berkeley Symphony, the Del Sol String Quartet, Sarah Cahill, KathleenSupov, the Albany Symphony, Contemporaneous, ZOFO Duet, John Adams, Marin Alsop, and many others.Hehas beenMusical AmericasNew Artist of the Monthand was awarded the Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors. Mattingly has held residencies at the Ucross Foundationand the Harrison House Arts & Ecology Center.

Dylan Mattingly also is the executive and co-artistic director of the new-music ensemble Contemporaneous – a group of twenty-five musicians whose mission is to bring to life the most transformative music by living composers through performances, commissions, recordings, and educational programs. In the tradition of the ensembles founded by Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, and Steve Reich early in their careers, the ensemble has mastered a body of music whose idiosyncratic demands and epic proportions do not fit neatly into the institutional calendars of symphony orchestras or traditional opera companies. Described as exact and detailed, but also lively and openly dancing by the New York Times and leading new music towards its better self by I Care If You Listen, Contemporaneous particularly champions the creation of large-scale works and dream projects, which composers might not otherwise have opportunities to realize due to scale.Based in New York City and active throughout the United States, Contemporaneous has premieredmore than200 new works, and has been presented by institutionssuchas Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall, PROTOTYPE Festival, Merkin Concert Hall, MATA Festival, St. Anns Warehouse, and Bang on a Can. The ensemblehas worked with artistssuchas David Byrne, Donnacha Dennehy, Iarla Lionird, Dawn Upshaw, and Julia Wolfe.

Vinyl Tracklisting

1. The Transmutation Notebooks: I. Ulysses Dances

2. The Transmutation Notebooks: IV. Last Dance

3. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (these are the tears of things)