Category Archives: On record

On Record – Laurence Pike – The Undreamt-of Centre (The Leaf Label)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The idea of composing a requiem for voices, drums and electronics has sat with Australian percussionist Laurence Pike for some time. Having explored the ‘processes and ecstatic outcomes of rituals’ on the Holy Spring album of 2019, he became more and more interested in applying contemporary instrumentation to an ancient religious form.

The death of his father-in-law in July 2021, in the middle of another Covid lockdown in Sydney, brought a prolonged period of sombre reflection for Pike, along with the well-documented environmental disasters in his homeland. With a new-found appreciation for nature, inspired by his wife’s late father, Pike resolved to write the requiem. For inspiration on the text he turned from the Latin text usually associated with requiem to the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, and in particular his Sonnets to Orpheus – inspired by the classical Greek myth.

What’s the music like?

Both striking and moving. Pike has always shown great invention in his writing, whether in a solo capacity or as a third of the excellent Szun Waves, but here he goes above and beyond.

In his use of percussion the listener can link to Japanese ambient music, while the choral writing is a blend of the ancient – Allegri’s Miserere, perhaps, heard most explicitly in the apex of the Introit – and more modern and rarefied Estonian works for choir.

All these come together on the thrilling Mountains Of The Heart section, a remarkable sequence of energetic drumming and high, held notes from the choir that take the music to the air. This is music of immense power and energy, but it is balanced with thoughtful asides and reflective moments that give the listener space. Universal Forces and All Is Distance are two such sections, intense meditations where Pike also uses the mysterious effect of quarter tones.

Eurydice is a profound, piano-led instrumental, laced with percussive counterpoint and field recordings that complement rather than intrude. This leads to the Requiem Aeternam itself, a combination of stasis (the wordless choir) and movement (percussion), with electronics also intoning a melody of ancient origin. It is an intense song without words.

Does it all work?

It does – and an immense amount of credit should go to the performers, not least the Vox Sydney Philharmonia Choir, the twelve singers who take on any challenge thrown at them. Pike’s drumming has immense power at times

Is it recommended?

Yes, enthusiastically. Laurence Pike has made something very special here, a piece of music that contrasts moments of great energy and contemplation. The Undreamt-of Centre is very much an album for our times.

For fans of… Tonu Korvits, Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Philip Glass

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Published post no.2,311 – Tuesday 24 September 2024

On Record – Erland Cooper: Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence (Mercury KX)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This is no ordinary album. In 2021, having made a recording of his new extended work for violin and string orchestra, Erland Cooper destroyed all digital evidence of its existence, then buried the sole surviving analogue tape in the Orkney soil. The significance of his decision to return the recording to earth lay in its subject matter, for Carve The Runes was written to mark the centenary of Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown. Cooper grew up near Brown’s house, and his voice could be heard on the new recording, giving it a keen sense of time and location.

In 2022, the surviving tape was found, exhumed and restored, the surviving recording transferred – warts and all – to digital. Bearing the indelible imprint of the Orkney soil, it was now a historical relic, and we hear the very earth on the retouched recording, carefully restored and timed for the September equinox.

What’s the music like?

Cooper’s most substantial piece yet is effectively a concerto, beautifully essayed by violinist Daniel Pioro, with support from the Studio Collective. It is bisected by timely interventions from Mackay Brown, his profound verses matched by the intensity of the writing for strings. Pioro commands the piece, which is based on small, folk-based motifs, but grows to become a work of intense meaning.

The earth makes its contribution too, though the music is actually incredibly well preserved. When there are layers of distortion, or the music becomes muffled, the effect is akin to hearing a piece of old vinyl, and creates moments of charm and ruffled appeal.

This is open air music, the violin on the wing for much of the half-hour duration, while the strings – often earthbound – provided an anchor of musical surety and poise.

Does it all work?

It does. Cooper has the measure of this work’s structure, and it peaks at just the right spot – with a phrase whose telling melodic turn burns into the consciousness. It is an ambitious piece, but one that works..

Is it recommended?

It certainly is. Carve The Runes…is a remarkable document of time and place, and with Mackay Brown’s verses it has a great deal of profound meaning within its confines. It is Erland Cooper’s finest work to date, offering further evidence of his ability to communicate through pictorial music – in the way the best classical music can.

For fans of… Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, Hauschka, Thomas Newman

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You can explore purchase options at the Mercury KX shop, and you can listen on Tidal below:

Published post no.2,310 – Monday 23 September 2024

On Record – Tredegar Town Band / Ian Porterhouse, Martyn Brabbins – Holst at 150: A Brass Celebration (Doyen)

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Gustav Holst
Suites for Military Band Op.28:
no.1 in E flat major (1909)
no.2 in F major (1911)
The Perfect Fool Op.39 (1918-22) – Ballet Music (all arr. Littlemore).
A Fugal Overture Op.40 no.1 (1922; arr. Wheeler)
Mr Shilkret’s Maggot (1932; arr. Hindmarsh)
A Moorside Suite (1928)
Imogen Holst
The Unfortunate Traveller (1929; ed. Hindmarsh)
Glory of the West (1969)

Tredegar Town Band / Ian Porthouse and Martyn Brabbins (A Moorside Suite)

Doyen DOYCD435 [74’37’’]
Producer Adam Goldsmith Engineer Daniel Lock
Recorded 18-19 May 2024 at Jack Williams VC Hall, The Works, Ebbw Vale

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

The 150th anniversary of his birth, and 50th anniversary of his death, is an ideal opportunity to reassess the legacy of Holst in all its variety; not least with this anthology of his music for brass band that also finds space for her contribution to the medium by his daughter Imogen.

What’s the music like?

Typical and inimitable Holst – but, as he only wrote one work for the medium, much of this release consists of arrangements. The two Suites for Military Band were obvious candidates: the First Suite’s Chaconne emerges with renewed pathos, as too its whimsical Intermezzo or rumbustious March; no less idiomatic is the Second Suite with its recourse to traditional tunes in such as the effervescent initial March, then the final Fantasia with its memorable rendering of the Dargason. Philip Littlemore is an expert arranger here as of the Ballet Music from the opera The Perfect Fool – the sections that evoke ‘earth’ and fire’ lacking a degree of panache, but that of ‘water’ hardly less magical in this guise. Alastair Wheeler proves no less adept in capturing the impetus of A Fugal Overture, while Paul Hindmarsh gives what ought to be a new lease of life to the ‘jazz-band piece’ designated Mr Shilkret’s Maggot praised but never played by its commissioner. Imogen Holst’s 1967 orchestral arrangement as Capriccio rescued it from oblivion, but this new incarnation makes even more of its recalcitrant humour.

Mention of Imogen leads one to her pieces for brass band, both included here. Compact and characterful, her suite The Unfortunate Traveller was initially more successful as transcribed for strings, though Hindmarsh’s edition adds percussion and clarifies the brass texture as was doubtless intended. Its sure highlight is the winsome Interlude, conjuring a discreet though tangible profundity subsequently glimpsed with The Glory of the West – seven variations on said Morris Dance which confirms music written for amateurs need not involve compromise.

This just leaves A Moorside Suite, a work such as transformed the standing of test-pieces for brass band with that understated acuity surely unique to this composer. Whether in its gently satirical Scherzo, wistful Nocturne whose gradual building to a soulful culmination makes for the highlight of this collection, then a March which fuses energy and eloquence to round off the sequence with irresistible elan – this is Holst at his most engaging and communicative. Music, moreover, Martyn Brabbins clearly relished the chance to conduct for this recording.

Does it all work?

Absolutely, both in this piece and elsewhere, as long-standing music director Ian Porthouse puts the Tredegar Town Band exactingly and admirably through its collective paces. At the forefront of the modern brass-band movement, the latter is ideally placed to find this music an audience outside of its customary domain. That it succeeds is clear from the fact that one listens to this programme without thought of the medium or its context; rather, the emphasis is on those qualities of inspiration and substance as are hallmarks of any worthwhile music.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. Recorded with requisite clarity and definition, and featuring informative annotations by Hindmarsh and Littlemore, this is a significant release in Holst’s anniversary year and an evident first choice for acquiring a representative cross-section of his music in this medium.

Listen & Buy

You can listen to samples and explore purchase options on the World of Brass website Click on the names for more on conductors Ian Porthouse and Martyn Brabbins, the Tredegar Town Band, and for more on the composers Gustav Holst and daughter Imogen Holst

Published post no.2,307 – Friday 20 September 2024

On Record – Benjamin: Picture A Day Like This (Nimbus)

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George Benjamin
Picture a day like this (2021-23)

Woman – Marianne Crebassa (mezzo-soprano)
Zabelle – Anna Prohaska (soprano)
Artisan/Collector – John Brancy (baritone)
First Lover/Composer – Beate Mordal (soprano)
Second Lover/Composer’s Assistant – Cameron Shahbazi (countertenor)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Sir George Benjamin

Nimbus NI8116 [60’09’’] English libretto included

Producer & Engineer Etienne Pipard
Live performance, 5 July 2023 at Theâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Nimbus continues its long association with the music of George Benjamin by releasing his most recent opera, as recorded during its initial production at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and here featuring an impressive line-up of musicians under the direction of the composer.

What’s the music like?

Surprising as was the emergence of Benjamin as an opera composer, he has consolidated his standing accordingly – the ‘lyric tale’ Into the Little Hill (NI5964) duly followed by the full-length Written on Skin (NI5885) then Lessons in Love and Violence (NI5976). In spite of its greater length, Picture a day like this marks his return to the intimacy and understatement of that first venture in terms of its reduced cast and chamber forces – for all that the underlying ‘theme’ seems nothing if not significant in its consideration of life above and beyond death.

Unfolding across seven scenes, the narrative relates a Woman’s search for a ‘happy person’ to redeem the death of her child – during which she encounters a pair of Lovers, a retired Artisan and a renowned Composer; their happiness and contentment in each case pure self-deception. After a despairing monologue, she meets a Collector whose attempted empathy leads her to a garden where the arcadian aspect proves as illusory as the contentment of Zabelle: one whose ostensibly tragic story still enables her to glimpse a future beyond what she has experienced.

Musically this work finds Benjamin at his most subtle and often rarified though never merely inscrutable. Understandably eschewing those respectively sustained expressive build-ups then jarring histrionics of his previous two stage-works, the present opera focusses on incremental changes of emphasis both vocally and instrumentally to maintain a fluid if always perceptible momentum. Allied to this the texture has a poise and finesse, notable even by the standards of this composer, as largely mitigates any sense of the drama played out at an emotional remove.

It could hardly be bettered in terms of performance. Marianne Crebassa brings eloquence and no little fervour to the Woman, while Anna Prohaska evokes Zabelle with mounting gravitas. The other singers are nothing if not attuned to their doubling of roles – notably John Brancy’s fractured Artisan, Beate Mordal’s unfulfilled Composer and Cameron Shahbazi’s narcissistic Lover. Long an able exponent of his own music, Benjamin secures playing of responsiveness from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as he steers this work forward with audible inevitability.

Does it all work?

Yes, providing one accepts that Benjamin’s idiom is inward if not necessarily inward-looking and elusive without its being inaccessible. The ethos of this opera is likely to be experienced at a remove from the drama it articulates, with the listener becoming absorbed in the onstage action but never coerced into an intended response. That what one takes from listening to it is no more permanent than it is predetermined is itself testimony to the conviction of Benjamin’s and librettist Martin Crimp’s fashioning a parable simultaneously of its own yet outside time.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, given the fascination of its subject, the nature of its treatment and the assurance of its realization. Hopefully a DVD presentation of this or the subsequent Royal Opera production will be forthcoming. Even if or when it appears, this release can be strongly recommended.

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Buy / Further information

For purchase options and more information on this release, visit the Nimbus website.

Published post no.2,303 – Tuesday 17 September 2024

On Record – The Silver Abduction: The Silver Abduction (Lightwell Recordings)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Not much is known about The Silver Abduction…but all you really need to know is that this is the first record from a collaboration between Andy Dragazis (the man behind Blue States) and singer Allison Brice (who has previous with The 18th Day Of May and Lake Ruth).

Their short descriptive biography over on Bandcamp suggests a combination of ‘lush orchestral melodies, church reverb drenched drums intertwined with Allison’s haunting vocals and lyrics.

What’s the music like?

This album is a slow burner, and with repeated listens it starts to become a real treasure. Dragazis has a great deal of experience on beautifully voiced pop songs, and here he makes some richly coloured productions over which Brice can work her magic.

The lyrics themselves suggest wistful, lovelorn situations that are given real meaning by Brice, who sings with deep emotion. There is definitely a pop sensibility that suggests Stereolab, Broadcast or Saint Etienne – the latter on Remember My Heart especially, which is a pop treasure.

Thermocline is a winsome combination of Dragazis’ orchestral palette and Brice’s flexible vocals, while Careful On The Ways is a wistful, late summer beauty. Quarter To Two tells a vivid story, while the closing Cecile is a waltz in what feels like an empty fairground.

Does it all work?

It does. These are pop songs with depth and subtle but lasting expression, and the album is ideally structured. Brice could pretty much be singing about stocks and shares and still make a lasting impression – that she’s not makes the album even more meaningful.

Is it recommended?

Definitely. The Silver Abduction are a treasure, and hopefully this is the start of a lengthy musical relationship. A beauty!

For fans of… Saint Etienne, Dubstar, Kinobe, The Sundays

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Published post no.2,301 – Saturday 14 September 2024