State Change is a suite of ‘seven electro-acoustic tone poems’, from a deeply personal source. When aged seven, Molly Joyce was involved in a car accident that resulted in a permanent injury to her left hand, which was nearly amputated. A great deal of surgery was carried out to restore the hand to something approaching working order, though even now it is still impaired.
State Change is a musical representation of the medical procedures and records behind the slow route to recovery. Joyce was keen, however, for the album not to be a ‘pity party’, but to turn her experience into music.
What’s the music like?
Direct and unflinching, the album unfolds with seven tracks whose titles reflect key dates in the injury and recovery process. August 6, 1999 – the day of the accident – opens with a single, unblinking sine wave, that proves a little uncomfortable in the wrong environment, but opens out to be quite a sonorous drone accompaniment to a melody of long phrases, its roots in chant. The words are matter of fact but describe the situation with unflinching accuracy – ‘Skin is…minimal…flap is…needed.
August 9 1999 is painful, recovery far from the mind as Joyce deploys her ‘chest voice’, shrouded in distortion. The next week, just after a solar eclipse, August 13 + 16 1999 are more fragile but also submissive, the procedure of back to back surgeries showing the shoots of recovery. Distortion and drones are the constant accompaniment, at times intensely threatening – the surgery especially – and culminating in a scream generated by experimental artist Fire-Toolz.
At other times the drones provide comfort, especially when surgery is done. November 24, 1999 moves slowly, Joyce’s vocal an out of body experience, before April 19, 2000 and October 26, 2001 find calmer waters, the latter a release through the removal of pins from her hand. July 27, 2007 is made with the left hand itself using a music glove, and produces music of rare tenderness and vulnerability, the scar size reduced.
Does it all work?
This is vividly descriptive music, and its intensity certainly won’t suit all occasions. Yet State Change is fiercely personal, and has at its core a lasting resolve that makes a strong impact on the listener.
Is it recommended?
It is. A deeply courageous album, a story of overcoming adversity. State Change may be slow moving and is occasionally painful to take in, but it is ultimately a life-affirming album, a release from captivity.
interview by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Julie Andrews
You do not move forward by standing still. That is evidently the maxim of the English Symphony Orchestra, whose first release on its new in-house label has just been issued. Apropos of this and other matters, Arcana spoke recently to Kenneth Woods, the principal conductor and artistic director of the ESO, about his plans for this audacious undertaking.
It made sense to begin with the motivation behind the establishing of ESO Records. ‘‘It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Being able to release whatever we want, and whenever we want, to is hugely empowering for us as an orchestra. It gives us a chance to align our concert work with our online presence and recording programme more strategically’’.
As to whether these releases will be mainly studio or live recordings, ‘‘It’ll be a combination of both. I think that over the course of the next couple of years, listeners will start to discern a number of threads within the ESO Records portfolio. Our first release is an Elgar Festival disc with Elgar’s First Symphony and his concert overture In the South. This is a great way for us to spread the word about the festival internationally and also to share the exceptional quality of Elgar Festival events. And, with the festival doing so many new or lesser-known works, we can share that music with a world-wide audience.
‘‘As a result of the COVID pandemic, we’ve an enormous amount of material ‘in the can’ that we recorded for ESO Digital (our online video portal). ESO Records gives us a chance to share that body of work, also to highlight and complement our future concerts. For instance, we’ll be releasing our one-per-part version of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony to coincide with a run of performances in December. And there are studio projects such as the Sibelius cycle which have continued as we tie-in the recording of its future instalments to public concerts’’.
Woods is keen to point out that ESO Digital release will complement the orchestra’s ongoing schedule of releases for other labels. ‘‘Since we released the first disc of my tenure in 2015, we’ve worked with Nimbus, Lyrita, Signum, Avie, Toccata and Somm among others. While I hope that many of those partnerships will continue, the economic climate for labels is very difficult. They’ve a lot of fixed costs and declining revenue streams which means that, for a group like us, finding release slots and agreeing repertoire or projects has become more complicated. Something like the Sibelius cycle which, while it is very important to us as an orchestra, is not the kind of repertoire many labels do anymore.
‘‘One can also be hampered through labels having other versions of the same repertoire in the pipeline or in their back catalogue. That said, I’d contend the world does need recordings of pieces which emerge out of shared sympathy and enthusiasm for the music among players, conductor and production team. There’s always more to be said about the greatest music, and if we feel we’ve something meaningful to contribute, then we’re going to say it’’.
Given the varying economic and logistical factors, ESO Records might not always be issued both as CDs and Downloads. ‘‘This will vary according to the release. It makes to put the Elgar Festival Live stuff makes out on CD because they make a great souvenir for attendees. But with most projects today, physical sales are so small it isn’t worth the cost or complexity of maintaining an inventory and shipping it all over the world. Moreover, the argument used to be that CDs sounded better, but the quality now at 24-bit and 96-kHz sampling contains between three and ten times as much detail and information. We want our listeners to hear our work in the best possible quality, and these days that means streaming or hi-res downloads’’.
With this in mind, listeners can look forward to no mean diversity in terms of future issues. ‘‘I mentioned we were looking to create coherent and ongoing threads among our releases. Elgar Festival Live has several more releases ready and we’ll be recording our performances at this year’s and all future festivals. The orchestra’s long-term commitment to contemporary music will be a big part of our future work, and I expect this to feature many of the amazing composers that listeners have come to associate with ESO such as Philip Sawyers, Adrian Williams, Emily Doolittle, David Matthews and Steve Elcock. We’re also keen to draw on the ESO’s extensive archive of performances by composers such as Ireland, McCabe, Maw, Simpson and Arnold, along with performances conducted by the likes of Michael Tippett and Yehudi Menuhin, with a wider public.”
‘‘The Sibelius and Mahler projects are indicative of our desire to put our stamp on so-called standard repertoire or, as I prefer to call it, the greatest music ever written. One of the best things about streaming is that not every release needs to be a 70-minute album. Archival recordings might well come out as singles or EPs to align with composer anniversaries or birthdays, historic occasions and upcoming concerts – so there’ll be releases of Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Strauss, Bartók and Shostakovich. I’m also very proud of our track record of championing historically suppressed music, so listeners can expect further issues of Gál, Schulhoff, Kapralova, Krenek and Weinberg.”
‘‘Finally, ESO Records will give us greater freedom to develop collaborative projects with artistic partners including composers, soloists and directors. We’ve just recorded a fantastic disc of organ concertos by Poulenc, Hindemith and Daniel Pinkham with organist Iain Quinn for release next year, and I’m hopeful there’ll be many opportunities in the future to work collaboratively so as to bring worthwhile music to the public’s attention’’.
Much to look forward to, then, from a label whose artists have never shied away in pushing the envelope when it comes to imaginative programming and innovative presentation. Qualities, indeed, that will no doubt prove synonymous with whatever releases emerge from the ever-enterprising English Symphony Orchestra.
Jean Sibelius Symphony no.6 in D minor Op. 104 (1918-23) Symphony no.7 in C major Op. 105 (1923-4) Tapiola, Op, 112 (1926)
English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
ESO Records ESO2502 [67’16”] Producers Phil Rowlands, Michael Young Engineer Tim Burton
Recorded 1-2 March 2022 (Symphony no.6 & Tapiola); 2 May 2023 (Symphony no.7) at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Good to find the English Symphony Orchestra issuing the follow-up release on its own label (after Elgar’s First Symphony and In the South), launching an ambitious project to record all seven symphonies and Tapiola by Sibelius prior to the 70th anniversary of his death in 2027.
What are the performances like?
Only if the Sixth Symphony is considered neo-classical does it feel elusive, rather than a deft reformulation of Classical precepts as here. Hence the first movement unfolds as a seamless evolution whose emotional contrasts are incidental – Kenneth Woods ensuring its purposeful course complements the circling repetitions of the following intermezzo, with its speculative variations on those almost casual opening gestures. Ideally paced, the scherzo projects a more incisive tone which the finale then pursues in a refracted sonata design that gains intensity up to its climactic mid-point. Tension drops momentarily here, quickly restored for a disarming reprise of its opening and coda whose evanescence is well conveyed; a reminder that Sibelius Six is as much about the eschewal of beginnings and endings in its seeking a new coherence.
A decisive factor in the Seventh Symphony is how its overall trajectory is sensed – the ending implicit within the beginning, as Sibelius fuses form and content with an inevitability always evident here. After an expectant if not unduly tense introduction, Woods builds the first main section with unforced eloquence to a first statement of the trombone chorale that provides the formal backbone. His transition into the ‘scherzo’ is less abrupt than many, picking up energy as the chorale’s re-emergence generates requisite momentum to sustain a relatively extended ‘intermezzo’. If his approach to the chorale’s last appearance is a little restrained, the latter’s intensity carries over into a searing string threnody that subsides into pensive uncertainty; the music gathering itself for a magisterial crescendo which does not so much end as cease to be.
Tapiola was Sibelius’s last completed major work, and one whose prefatory quatrain implies an elemental aspect rendered here through the almost total absence of transition in this music of incessant evolution. A quality to the fore in a perceptive reading where Woods secures just the right balance between formal unity and expressive diversity across its underlying course. Occasionally there seems a marginal lack of that ‘otherness’ such as endows this music with its uniquely disquieting aura, but steadily accumulating momentum is rarely in doubt on the approach to the seething climax, or a string threnody whose anguish bestows only the most tenuous of benedictions. A reminder, also, that not the least reason Sibelius may have failed to realize an ‘Eighth Symphony’ was because he had already done so with the present work.
Does it all work?
Pretty much throughout. Whether or not the cycle unfolds consistently in reverse order (with a coupling of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies having already been announced), this opening instalment is the more pertinent for focussing on Sibelius’s last years of sustained creativity.
Is it recommended?
Indeed. The ESO is heard to advantage in the spacious ambience of Wyastone Hall, and there are detailed booklet notes by Guy Rickards. Make no mistake, these are deeply thoughtful and superbly realized performances which launch the ESO’s Sibelius cycle in impressive fashion.
by Ben Hogwood Photo By Unknown author – Original publication
On this day, 50 years ago, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich died at the age of 68 in Moscow.
He is without doubt one of my favourite composers…but I will save a full appraisal for a major, extended project that is due to begin on Arcana pages shortly, studying Shostakovich’s music in the context of his contemporaries.
For now I will post four pieces, the last three in the form of a concert that show Shostakovich to have a number of strings to his bow. Beginning with a home favourite, the String Quartet no.7, we move to three orchestral works – the Jazz Suite no.1, the Cello Concerto no.2, and the Symphony no.8. The Cello Concerto no.2 is given in a fantastic recording by Heinrich Schiff, conducted by the composer’s son Maxim, while the symphony is the first recording of his music that I heard, with Rudolf Barshai conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra:
It’s been a week for techno in Arcana towers – and following yesterday’s review of Carl Craig’s Landcruising, I have done a bit of a deep dive into the music of his fellow Detroit luminary Kenny Larkin. The results have been consistently inspiring, but I wanted to share two special rediscoveries, in the form of Chasers and Loop 2. Happy Friday!
Arcana.fm 