Trained as a professional
viola player, Brett Dean has been Principal Viola in the Queensland
Orchestra for four years before joining the Berliner Philharmoniker
in 1985. In 2000 he left Germany and returned to Australia to
become a full-time composer. He has already composed a number
of works that have put him firmly on the map. Some of them have
also made their way onto record, but the present is, I think,
the first all-Dean CD to be released.
The
earliest piece here is the clarinet concerto Ariel’s Music,
composed in 1995 for his brother, the clarinettist Paul Dean
who has previously recorded the piece with the Queensland Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Richard Mills (ABC Classics 456 678-2).
It was written in memory of a young American girl Ariel Glaser
who died from AIDS and of her mother Elisabeth who managed to
raise $30 millions for paediatric AIDS research before falling
victim to the virus. Dean’s clarinet concerto is in two movements
of fairly equal length, but of quite different character. The
first movement Elegy, roughly in arch form, opens somewhat
hesitantly and leads into a more animated central section alternating
violent outbursts, restful pauses and some skittish episodes
before ending as a sad, forlorn dirge. The second movement Circumstances,
that the composer describes as a Todestanz (“Dance of
Death”) is a long, furious, at times grotesque, scherzo in all
but name. It has many contrasting episodes and culminates in
a massive tutti moving into a long sorrowful coda of
great beauty.
According
to the composer’s own words, Beggars and Angels
resulted from his being “intrigued by the apparent opposites
– but uncanny similarities – of the sculpted beggars (by Trak
Wendisch) and painted angels (by Dean’s wife, Heather Betts)”.
One of the angels adorns the cover of this disc having originally
been seen in an exhibition held in Potsdam. Beggars and
Angels is a substantial piece for large orchestra including
a vast array of percussion, the whole often used in arresting
and inventive ways. The basic material is drawn from a piece
for solo viola Intimate Decisions (1996). Not
knowing this piece, it is hard to find out how this massive
orchestral fresco relates to the viola piece; perhaps however
this is not all that important. The intrinsic qualities of this
imposing piece and of the other pieces recorded here, are what
really matters: a remarkable orchestral mastery, invention,
imagination and a great expressive strength. Though in one single
movement, the piece falls into two main sections. After a pensive
start, the first section unfolds with many varied and contrasted
episodes, some violent climaxes and abrupt changes of mood.
The second section is, on the whole, calmer and more sparse.
The piece ends with a beautiful, eerie coda harking back to
the opening music, brings proceedings full circle. An often
very beautiful, and quite impressive work that undoubtedly deserves
wider exposure.
Amphitheatre, the most recent piece here, is also cast as a single movement in
arch form. It was inspired by Michael Ende’s book for children
Momo (that – I must confess – I do not know) describing
the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheatre on the outskirts
of a large, modern city. The music, however, is not programmatic,
but rather evokes the strong, massive architecture of the amphitheatre
and its past glories; you will not hear the sounds of the Roman
legion marching down the Via Appia as in Respighi’s Pines
of Rome. The piece opens with oscillating chords “portraying
the amphitheatre’s massive blocks of stone” amidst the stillness
surrounding the place. “Reminiscences of past glories” soon
become prominent with brilliant, sometimes menacing fanfares,
bringing a drastic mood change. About halfway through the piece,
the music “freezes”, in a beautiful episode of great calm.
Dean’s
music was new to me, although I had recently heard another piece
of his, Winter Songs for tenor and wind quintet
(on BIS CD-1332) that I found quite attractive and really well
made. These sizeable orchestral scores are quite beautiful,
superbly crafted by one who has acquired a deep feeling for
telling orchestral textures, gained from his experience as a
professional orchestral player. But there is much more than
that in his highly communicative and expressive music wonderfully
served by the players. This is a most desirable release, for
here is a composer who obviously has things to say and who knows
how to say them in the best possible way.
Hubert
Culot
