Something which really,
really annoys me is shops which
put big notices ‘SALE’, or ‘SPECIAL
OFFER’, and when you look, it’s just
budget price CDs being sold at their
standard price. Nobody is fooled by
this; it just switches me off from looking
for new gems from the likes of Naxos.
Having said that, I’m not sure I would
have picked Paul Moravec out as being
on my ‘must have’ list, which, clattering
through the jewel cases at sprint speed
as usual, would have been a big loss.
Moravec is essentially
a romantic composer – by which I do
not mean that his work is dripping with
sentimentality, more that his language
is intuitive, unafraid of the past,
and programmatic rather than polluted
with artificial intellectualism. Having
won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music
and with a substantial catalogue to
his name already, his future as a composer
of substance would seem to be assured.
The Time Gallery
is chamber music on an impressive
scale. In four movements, the first,
Bells, describes a day marked
out by the chimes of medieval Benedictine
monasteries. Atmospheric meditation
develops through some interesting counterpoint
over a ground bass toward more rhapsodic
writing. There is considerable virtuosity
asked of the musicians, with instrumental
filigrees winding around sometimes chorale-like
harmonic movement which made a few other
composers names pop into my mind – only
momentarily, but there are one or two
Nyman or Adams-esque progressions, and
later on in the piece there is a distinctly
Frank Martin feel to some of the resolutions.
The music is in no way derivative, but
if you like these kinds of tonal idiom,
then the chances are you will love this
to bits. The second movement, Time
Machine, starts predictably with
ticking clocks, but the music is dramatic
– pulse driven, but with shifting accents
and constantly mobile mini-ostinati
which are in reality melodic fragments
pushing the while thing along at pace.
The movement describes the development
of clocks and temporal philosophy through
time, including a B.A.C.H. reference
which rolls gently along underneath
the Pendulum second section of
the movement. eighth blackbird’s six
performers prove themselves equal to
the muscular demands of this music at
every turn, and the playing is first
rate.
The hoorspel theatrical
feel of each movement’s opening
is continued with an actual heartbeat
at the beginning of Pulse: The Feeling
of What Happens. Some Martinůesque
piano writing pops out in this punchily
rhythmic movement. The fourth and final
movement is called Overtime:
Memory Sings, and here the principal
themes return and are summed up. There
are some almost Ivesean moments in this
‘meta-temporal imagination of an ideal
mind remembering the previous movements’,
but this is well though-through and
beautifully crafted music. The apotheosis
is Copland, Martinu, Martin, all rolled
into a mix which takes on its own character.
I can hear Peter Sallis’s voice calling
in from the next room; ‘cracking CD,
Gromit!’
The ‘fillers’ are also
repertoire-busting additions to the
catalogue. Protean Fantasy opens
with a lyrical phrase, which is treated
in a set of variations. Moravec’s energetic
style is well represented both here
and in Ariel Fantasy, which is
the prototype for the first movement
of his prize winning Tempest Fantasy.
These are pieces which I am sure will
soon be cropping up regularly on more
adventurous concert and exam programmes
in years to come.
So, with superb playing,
an excellent recording and some inspirational
new music I suggest, dear reader, you
unearth your bus pass or your bicycle
clips and head for the nearest classical
CD outlet. You might mention to the
shopkeeper that the admittedly low price
is in fact FULL price for that label,
and not a ‘Special Offer’, and then
compliment him on his foresight at stocking
such an excellent release.
Dominy Clements
Peter Sheppard – Skærved (violin) 
