In the course of a
discussion of another CD of Margaret
Brouwer’s work, by Paul Ingram (http://www.brouwermusic.com/reviews/light.html),
the composer is quoted as follows: "I
think my audience is made up of adventurous
and curious people who like to become
immersed in a sound world – who love
beautiful sounds – who are curious to
hear new sounds and new musical ideas
– and who are intellectual to the point
that they appreciate structure and organisation.
People who know the transparency and
clarity of traditional classical music
as well, since my music grows out of
that tradition". She is evidently
a composer who understands her own music,
because she points here to precisely
the interplay between clarity of structure
and originality of sound world which
seems to characterise her music, on
the evidence of this very interesting
CD.
Aurolucent Circles
is a percussion concerto in three
movements, whose titles – ‘Floating
in Dark Space’, ‘Stardance’ and ‘Cycles
and Currents’ – suggest something of
the aural imagery in this highly evocative
music. The first movement opens with
quiet and distant sounds, percussive
whispers and fragments of melody, picks
up momentum and ends with urgent bursts
of sound. In the second movement there
is much use of spatial effects - this
excellently recorded CD might have sounded
even better in SACD? - as the focal
point moves from side to side, from
front to back. Circling patterns of
sound do, indeed, invoke a kind of cosmic
dance. No doubt if one could see
Evelyn Glennie as soloist one would
be aware of a human dance too. ‘Cycles
and Currents’ is a rapid perpetuum mobile,
with lots of effective interplay between
soloist and orchestra – here as elsewhere
Brouwer’s concerto employs not only
soloist and entire orchestra, but also
two concertino groups, one made up of
two flutes, two harps, two percussionists,
the solo strings and one trombone, the
other made up of five woodwinds. The
resulting range of sounds – and ‘voices’
in the musical argument – is considerable.
This is subtle, poetic music, full of
surprises – but, as on all the best
music, the ‘surprises’ seem to have
about them a kind of inevitability when
one considers them in retrospect. Soloist,
orchestra and conductor all deserve
the highest praise.
Though she obviously
has a ‘pure’ musical intelligence of
a high order, Brouwer’s music is also
clearly grounded in non-musical inspirations,
as the composer’s own very useful notes
to this CD make clear. The second work
here, Mandala, reflects both
Brouwer’s observation of the creation
and destruction - with accompanying
chanting, blowing of horns etc.- of
an intricate sand painting by a group
of Tibetan monks, which provides a structural
model, and her own family background
in the Dutch Reformed Church, which
provides a leading melody. The two influences,
perhaps surprisingly, are fused in a
musically convincing fashion, with Kevin
Price a solo trombonist of both power
and delicacy. Pulse is a study
in rhythm and momentum, building to
a texturally rich conclusion. Remembrances,
written as a memorial to a friend, incorporates
many complex emotions in its fifteen
minutes – moving through initial sorrow
to affectionate memory and warm emotion
before closing in affirmation. This
is a lovely, modern tone poem. SIZZLE
is another study in rhythm, and again
makes use of spatial separation in the
deployment of the orchestra. Here a
group made up of three trombones and
a horn stand in antithesis to the rest
of the orchestra. The composer’s notes
describe very well the purpose and effect
of the division, explaining that the
main body of the orchestra represents
the frenetic pace of modern life, in
music which is "fast-paced, energized,
and filled with emphatic and mesmerising
rhythms" while the concertino group
"explore a deeper current, a psychic
cultural connection with the earth,
with the ground of being, with a universal
flow, with deep space, with the collective
unconscious". The music lives up
to such claims.
Brouwer, on the evidence
of this CD, is a composer of real distinction.
Her music is richly textured but it
never merely luxuriates in sound; there
are clearly articulated structures underpinning
her work so that there are rich and
significant patterns of sound at both
micro and macro levels of the music.
The whole is a highly rewarding CD,
a collection whose idioms are surely
easily accessible to any open-minded
listener but which is simultaneously
distinctive and personal.
Glyn Pursglove
see also review
by Hubert Culot
Evelyn Glennie (percussion)1; Kevin
Price (trombone)2; 
