Emily Howard‘s new album, Torus – as reviewed on Arcana – is released today.
When I spoke to Emily about the piece itself back in 2018, she said, “When I created Torus, I imagined I was on the surface of the shape, travelling around and around in one direction, and encountering different landscapes as I went. Around 14 minutes into the work, there is a significant shift and a complete change of musical soundworld, and this is where I had instead imagined a rotation in the other direction. So considering mathematical shapes in this way does help me to define musical shapes and structure in my compositions”.
You can explore buying options for Torus at the NMC website, and watch a short video about it below:
Enescu Romanian Rhapsody no.1 in A major Op.11/1 (1901, arr. 1957) Impressions roumaines (1925, arr, 2008) Sonata Torso in A minor (1911) Impromptu concertant in G flat major (1903) Regrets in G flat major (1898, compl. 2018) Adagio in B flat major Op.3/3 (1897, arr. 1929) Valse lente ‘L’Enjôleuse’ (1902) Caprice Roumain (1925-49, compl. 1994-6)
Sherban Lupu (violin) with Viorela Ciucur (piano); Sinfonia da Camera / Ian Hobson (Caprice Roumain), Ian Hobson (piano, Romanian Rhapsody)
Toccata Classics TOCC0647 [72’52″]
Producers / Engineers Florentina Herghelegiu, Christopher Ericson (Romanian Rhapsody), Jon Schoenoff (Caprice Roumain)
Recorded 7-8 April 2022 at George Enescu Auditorium, University of Music, Bucharest, 2 February 2001 at Krannert Center for Performing Arts, Urbana, Illinois (Caprice Roumain), 15 March 2004 at Krannert Art Museum, Champagne Illinois (Romanian Rhapsody)
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The expansion and enrichment of George Enescu’s catalogue has been in progress for several decades. Toccata Classics now issues a follow-up of works realized by others, posthumously published or performed in unfamiliar arrangements, all featuring the violinist Sherban Lupu.
What’s the music like?
Enescu’s early output charts a steady incline from precociousness to mastery, evidenced by the melodic poise of the Adagio from his First Piano Suite arranged by violinist Sandu Albu, or a fragmentary transcription of the bittersweet piano waltz Regrets as completed by Lupu. L’Enjouleuse might well have been a hit had its composer chosen not to publish it under the pseudonym ‘Camille Grozza’, its smouldering pathos in contrast to the objectified elegance of Impromptu concertant which was intended as a test-piece for the Paris Conservatoire.
Much the most significant among these earlier items, Sonata Torso belongs to a sequence of unfinished or unpublished pieces from between the First and Second Symphonies (1905-12) that find Enescu reassessing and extending his musical idiom. For all its prolixity, as would have made further movements unfeasible, this yields a wealth of tonal and harmonic incident within its rarefied ambit. Realized by Lupu from extensive sketches, Impressions roumaines makes for an invigorating entrée into the Third Violin Sonata for which this was preparation.
Lupu was also the catalyst behind Caprice Roumain on which Enescu intermittently worked for almost a quarter-century and the nearest he came to a violin concerto in his maturity. As completed by Cornel Țăranu, its compact design takes in a sombre and often ominous initial Moderato, a lightly sardonic scherzo modelled on the hora, a Lento of understated eloquence then a final Allegro whose synthesis of folk and art elements resembles Bartók in procedure if not aesthetic. Happily, this realization is increasingly being taken up by younger violinists.
Opening the collection with the First Romanian Rhapsody might seem unnecessary given its popularity over more than 120 years, yet this arrangement by composer and violinist Marcel Stern remains little known despite being published 65 years ago. The initial stages faithfully recreate the instrument interplay of Enescu’s original, and though the heady continuation can only hint at its scintillating orchestration, what results is a bravura concert-piece in its own right. Duo partnerships everywhere could do worse than try out this version in their recitals.
Does it all work?
Pretty much. This is a collection which, drawn from various sources and recorded at several locations, is given focus by the commanding presence and unstinting advocacy of Lupu. His playing may not be technically immaculate, though it does convey the essence of Enescu’s increasingly personal language; not least in Caprice Roumain, which he previously recorded with Cristian Mandeal (Electrecord) and to which this is a more than worthy successor. Ian Hobson’s credentials in Enescu hardly need restating, and neither do those of Viorela Ciucur.
Is it recommended?
Yes. Those who are primarily interested in the Caprice should investigate David Grimal’s superb account with Les Dissonances (La Dolce Vita) but this release, enhanced by detailed notes from Valentina Sandu-Dediu, makes a valuable addition to the Enescu discography.
Antisphere (BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Vimbayi Kaziboni) Producer Matthew Bennett, Engineer Stephen Rinker Recorded 29 November 2022, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
sphere (BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Mark Wigglesworth) Producer Dean Craven, Engineer Stephen Rinker Recorded at the Aldeburgh Festival, 23 June 2018, The Maltings, Snape
Compass (Julian Warburton (percussion), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group / Gabrielle Taychenné) Producer & Engineer David Lefeber Recorded 4 December 2022, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
Torus (BBC Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins) Producer Ann McKay, Engineer Christopher Rouse Recorded 11 November 2019, Barbican Hall, London
NMC Recordings D274 [68’58″]
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
NMC releases a second collection of music by Emily Howard – now in her early forties and established among the most distinctive while forward-looking composers of her generation, heard in scrupulous performances by a notable line-up of British orchestras and ensembles.
What’s the music like?
Few world premieres from recent years have left an impression comparable to that of Taurus at the Proms in 2016. Its appearance, moreover, marked a further stage in an evolution which had commenced just over a decade earlier and has continued apace, with major commissions from British and European organizations. This has been paralleled by Howard’s commitment into researching the intrinsic properties of sound, most recently via the Centre for Practice & Research in Science and Music (PRiSM) at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music.
As it now stands, Torus is the first part in an informal trilogy of pieces collectively entitled Orchestral Geometries. It evolves along the perceived trajectory of a doughnut-shaped ball whose central void is crucial to music evoking absence as much as presence. Not that a work subtitled Concerto for Orchestra could be found lacking in either immediacy of content or virtuosity of gesture, which qualities come demonstrably to the fore as it unfolds and make for a composition involving in its expressive profile and fascinating in its formal process.
By contrast, Sphere is a succinct yet eventful journey through and around the global shape in question and which, in this context, might reasonably be thought an extra-terrestrial interlude – its ideas pithy while exuding enough potential for their development in subsequent pieces.
This is what happens in Antisphere which forms its conceptual opposite though also its aural continuation, the piece gradually encompassing the ‘sound-space’ through an engrossing and imaginative demonstration of orchestral prowess. Evident too is an increased focus upon the visceral nature of the musical content, likely reflecting a form which can precisely be defined in mathematical terms but remains all but intangible as regards human perception. Fortunate, then, that Howard has been able to render this concept as an emotional and affective whole.
Hardly less absorbing is Compass, the most recent of these pieces. This takes the spatial and nautical connotations of its title as the basis for music which unfolds as a cohesive dialogue between string septet and percussion that complements it and offers contrasts at every turn.
Does it all work?
It does, not least for providing an arresting take on that interplay of ‘heart and brain’ that has been a mainstay of Western music. The cerebral basis of all these pieces may be undeniable, though equally so is the precision of their forms and, above all, the allure of their expression judged intrinsically as sound. Much the same could be said of the music of Iannis Xenakis, the centenary of whose birth was commemorated last year, and whose thinking is continued by Howard from a vantage that is inherently personal while being decisively of the present.
Is it recommended?
It is, not least for its excellent performances by three of the BBC orchestras and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, with booklet notes by Paul Griffiths and mathematician Marcus du Sautoy. This impressive release reinforces Howard’s significance in no uncertain terms.
Arcana.fm 