This second release
on the London Sinfonietta’s own label
seems to have been an eternity in coming.
The first disc (released in 2004) centred
on short pieces written to celebrate
the 2002 fiftieth birthday celebrations
of Oliver Knussen review.
The accent in this latest release, which
has been issued simultaneously with
the second volume in a projected series
of six, is the younger generation of
British composers as supported by the
Jerwood Charitable Foundation.
Tansy
Davies has worked previously
with the London Sinfonietta in recent
years as well as producing works for
The Composers Ensemble, Brunel Ensemble
and the London Symphony Orchestra. Although
having studied with Simon Bainbridge
and Simon Holt, Davies has, to her credit,
forged her own path in terms of an adventurous
language. Her music draws as much influence
from techno and popular culture as it
does from the conventional classical
world.
The composer’s own
description of neon as
a series of "boxes built to interlock
with each other in numerous ways" may
not sound particularly ground-breaking
as a structural device, but it is in
the sound-world Davies creates that
she finds her true voice and originality.
The composer talks of each ‘box’ having
its own "pattern or groove" and although
percussive rhythm certainly plays a
major part there is a clear sense of
musics colliding as the players interlock
the various boxes in the manner of their
choosing. Clattering, unpitched percussive
sounds mix with ethnic, earthy winds
often dominated by the distinctive timbre
of the bass clarinet. Strings are used
as much for their percussive characteristics
as their more conventional role with
the players of the London Sinfonietta
responding with typically consummate
coolness, the playing never overstated
and displaying an authority that comes
only from total absorption, ease and
familiarity with their repertoire.
Scottish-born Stuart
MacRae’s reputation was enhanced
considerably by the performance of his
Violin Concerto at the 2001 Promenade
Concerts. At the time he was only twenty
five, having made his even earlier mark
as a finalist in the 1996 Lloyd’s Bank
Young Composers Workshop at the tender
age of twenty.
Interact
is a trumpet concerto in all but
name, or perhaps more accurately a concerto
for trumpet and brass in that at various
stages the other members of the brass
section take their place in the fray,
as does the ensemble generally. Cast
in two roughly equal movements of around
ten minutes each, the "interaction"
of the title involves the trumpet, horn
and trombone of the ensemble moving
around the group to take up various
solo positions. This approach is not
unlike that of MacRae’s fellow Scot,
Thea Musgrave utilised to great effect
in works such as her Clarinet Concerto
of the 1960s.
Not surprisingly the
music that results places demands on
the members of the brass section that
are almost as great as those placed
on the soloist himself, here played
with stunning dexterity by John Wallace.
The work’s two movements
explore vastly differing musical worlds.
The first, marked Presto, pits the various
brass players against each other in
a highly rhythmic, at times almost manic
display of soloistic one-upmanship in
which the players often wrestle and
duel with each other in complex patterns
of interaction. In contrast the second
movement leaves the virtuosic games
of the first behind as the now largely
muted solo trumpet weaves a long lyrical,
melodic line over a slowly changing
backdrop into which have retreated the
members of the brass section that were
prominent in the first. Despite its
often complex scenarios MacRae’s striking
musical argument is realised with impressive
control and clarity of thought. One
senses that here is a composer we are
likely to hear a good deal more of in
the coming years.
A promising start then
to a potentially exciting series of
discs that will hopefully grow to reflect
the impressive diversity of developing
talent amongst a new and emerging generation
of British composers.
Christopher Thomas
London Sinfonietta/David Porcelijn; H.K. Gruber
