We learn from Gregory Harrington’s website that he created
Estile Records in 2006. This collection of music by James MacMillan
is the second release on the label. It is well recorded, though
for my personal taste the instruments would not be quite so
close. The disc is trendily presented in a cardboard, foldout
case, and the booklet contains extensive information about the
three young artists – though, as is so often the case nowadays,
we don’t learn where or when they were born – and about the
composer. The notes on the music, by MacMillan himself, have
been taken from the Boosey and Hawkes website. The typeface
is discouragingly minuscule.
My previous knowledge of MacMillan’s music was limited to his
choral and orchestral works, so I have been particularly pleased
to get to know some of his chamber music. The title Kiss
on Wood refers to the wood of the cross, and the Good Friday
procession of people passing by to kiss it. There is also an
association with the wood of the instruments on which the piece
is played. The composer’s notes describe the work as “a short,
static and serene meditation” on these matters, and this description
will do very well, except that the very opening is rather more
dramatic than that. The music is slow moving, with long note
values that, in the piano part, may be held almost to the point
of decay. Silence plays an important part too.
Over a series of arpeggiated chords in the piano, the multi-faceted
violin part of After the Tryst might seem too much. But
with its tremolandi, glissandi, harmonics and a multitude of
other stuff, this sketch for a later orchestral work is an exquisite
miniature. A Different World also relates to another
MacMillan work, his opera Inès de Castro. The composer
writes of the lovers’ “yearning for an imaginary world … far
from … political and military intrigues”, though characteristically
the work also includes references to plainsong and to a Passion
choral, thereby expressing “a deeper yearning”. I find this
a more difficult nut to crack, and even after several hearings
still don’t quite understand what the composer is driving at,
the hammered, repeated clusters at the bottom of the piano keyboard
that close the work particularly problematical, though there
are many striking and beautiful passages on the way.
Fourteen Little Pieces is written for piano trio. A wide
range of expression and emotion is contained here, as well as
great variety of instrumental texture. It’s a pity each piece
was not separately banded, as they run into one another and
I think a listener new to the work would get more out of it,
more quickly, if it were immediately clear where one piece ended
and the next began. Even now, after three hearings, I’m not
always sure. I wouldn’t want to make too much of this as it
won’t matter to everybody, but it bothers me if I don’t know
where I am in a new work, particularly one as challenging and
as potentially rewarding as this one.
After the dark intensity of the piano trio pieces it’s a relief
to turn to Walfrid, on His Arrival at the Gates of Paradise,
originally for folk band but here played in its piano version.
It starts sweetly and gently, but ends with a short, slightly
mad folk dance. Buying the disc is an excellent solution for
those who would like to understand the title, but suffice to
say that as well as a devout Catholic and politically engaged,
MacMillan is also an ardent supporter of Celtic Football Club
– some might think this the most important attribute of the
three – of which Walfrid was the founder. In the following piece,
the composer evokes the day in 1967 when Celtic won the European
Cup. This important occasion is celebrated in appropriately
exuberant fashion, though quite what the majority of Celtic
fans would make of it is open to question!
Darkness returns with in angustiis. The title is one
attributed to Haydn’s Nelson Mass, and might be translated
as “in time of anguish” or “in time of trouble”. The first piece,
for piano, was composed in 2001, and is a sombre reflection
following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and
elsewhere in September of that year. Works with the same title
also exist for solo soprano, solo oboe and solo cello, as well
as that for solo violin which closes this disc.
The performances are totally committed and will, I feel sure,
have brought great satisfaction to the composer. Three of the
pieces are marked as first recordings. This is a brave and enterprising
disc which is recommended to all those interested in modern
music, and more particularly to those yet to encounter James
MacMillan’s works for reduced forces.
William Hedley
see also review by Mark
Sealey (July 2011 Recording of the Month)
Gregory Harrington (violin); Simon Mulligan (piano); Caroline Stinson
(cello) 
