Our feature series Crate Digging takes a deep dive into music history to turn up several albums all music fans should know. In this edition, The National’s Bryce Dessner talks about 16 essential classical albums that should be in your collection.
Depending on your media diet, you might know Bryce Dessner as either a member of the long-running indie act The National or as a prolific film score composer (The Revenant, The Two Popes, Sing Sing). What those in the former camp might be surprised to learn, and what those in latter might be excited to recall, is that Dessner is also a deeply studied, remarkably accomplished figure in the world of contemporary classical music.
Rubbing elbows with icons of Western art music like Philip Glass and Steve Reich, Dessner has had pieces commissioned by several esteemed institutions, from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (for the New York Philharmonic) to the New York City Ballet. Suffice to say, the dude knows a thing or two about laying down a score.
Luckily for fans of his minimalism, baroque, and late romanticism-inspired work, Dessner is gearing up to share Solos (out Friday, August 23rd via Sony Music Masterworks), a collection unaccompanied instrumentals from the artist.
“I’m proud of it. It’s music I wrote at different times of my career, but it all feels like me,” he tells Consequence. “I always think the piece I just wrote feels the closest to my heart, but they’re all pieces I’m proud of. It’s cohesive in a way, for things that were done at different times. I’m sort of surprised at how well it hangs together.”
Performed by a long list of Dessner’s collaborators, Solos is anything but a lonesome excursion. Listening to the work, fans will hear the talents of cellist Anastasia Kobekina, violinist Pekka Kuusisto, pianist Katia Labèque, harpist Lavinia Meijer, violist Nadia Sirota, percussionist Colin Currie, and, of course, Dessner himself on guitar.
“Quite frankly, if I’m going to be super humble, these musicians are off-the-charts brilliant. To have one of them on an album is incredible; to have all of them is absurd,” Dessner says of the performers. “Each of them surprises me. Like, I’ve written a piece, but then they come back with their own interpretation of it.”
Fans of The National fear not, however, as Dessner hasn’t forgotten about his other group of collaborators. The band dropped two full-length albums last year, First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track, and they’ve got a co-headlining tour with The War on Drugs kicking off in September (get tickets here).
“We’re always jamming, but I think we’re going to take a little break after this tour and give ourselves a little time to breathe before we get back into it,” he shares.
In the meantime, the polymath is celebrating the release of Solos. To do so, he shared with Consequence 16 essential classical albums he thinks everyone should own. (Yes, pedantics, we know “classical” can technically refer to a specific era of Western music, but it’s a helpful shorthand for the type of music Dessner is excited to highlight.) Check out his full list below.