Although some of it
has been recorded from time to time
LeFanu’s music is still under-represented
in the current catalogue. Her large-scale
orchestral works such as Farne
(1980), The Hidden Landscape
(1973), Columbia Falls
(1975) and Wind among the
Pines (1987), still await
their first commercial recording. Some
may remember an earlier Chandos LP (ABR
1017) that, to the best of my knowledge,
has not been re-issued in CD format.
Among the existing recordings, I would
like to mention two vocal works for
soprano and piano (I Am Bread
and A Penny for a Song)
on BMS 420/421 CD, The Old Woman
of Beare on Lorelt LNT 101 and
Trio I on Capstone CPS-8640,
all of them currently available.
The present release
is the first all LeFanu CD, which makes
it the more welcome. With the exception
of the Clarinet Concertino, all pieces
here date from the late 1990s. The concertino
is described by the composer as "elusive,
understated and suggestive". It
comprises sixteen brief movements played
without a break creating "a continuous
narrative through many tiny, discontinuous
ideas". Fragments constantly re-appear
with variations throughout the whole
work. That the clarinet is more of a
partner than an outsider betrays the
origin of the Concertino for Clarinet
and String Orchestra, actually
a re-working of her slightly earlier
clarinet quintet Invisible Places,
itself completed in 1986.
Canción
de la luna for counter-tenor
and string quartet is a by-product of
LeFanu’s opera Blood Wedding
after Lorca. This was first staged in
1992. The part of the Moon was then
sung by Nicholas Clapton, for whom Canción
de la luna, setting the whole
of Lorca’s speech for the Moon in Spanish,
was composed in 1994. LeFanu’s setting
follows the implications of Lorca’s
at times surreal text in all its variety.
As might be expected, this is more of
a scena for voice and instruments
than a song. In it the instruments add
much to the often rather strange atmosphere
suggested by Lorca’s words.
LeFanu’s concise, though
substantial String Quartet No.2,
dedicated to the memory of her parents
William LeFanu and Elizabeth Maconchy,
is a beautifully moving, though not
always peaceful piece of music. It is
conceived as a musical equivalent to
a sonnet in which "points of unison
act like rhymes". These points
of unison also help structural cohesion
and act as bridges and anchors on which
the music briefly pauses. This magnificent
piece is one of the finest in this selection.
Catena
for eleven solo strings was composed
in 1999. As with several other works
by LeFanu, it was inspired by non-musical
stimuli, in this case by the sight of
the Pyrenees as seen from her studio,
a "seemingly unchanging view altering
with every shift of light". The
resulting music is not unlike that of
the Clarinet Concertino,
in that the whole piece may be experienced
as a set of metamorphoses, in which
several structural elements are present,
ever changing and yet the same. This
work displays a remarkable flair for
effective and imaginative string textures.
Catena is a really beautiful
and substantial piece of music that
deserves wider exposure. This and the
Second String Quartet are the real gems
here.
Fine works in excellent
performances, warmly recorded and all
at Naxos’s bargain price. One could
hardly want a better introduction to
LeFanu’s music. She is a most distinguished
composer who has things to say and who
knows how to say them in the best possible
musical terms.
Hubert Culot
