This is the third CD
to be released dedicated exclusively
to the music of Philip Grange, a fact
that is all the more pleasing given
that until 1999 Grange’s music was inexplicably
unrepresented in the catalogue.
That first release
on the Black Box label, "Dark Labyrinth"
was followed in 2006 by Metier’s "Darkness
Visible". Between them these
two discs feature works spanning over
twenty years of Grange’s career with
the latter including Cimmerian Nocturne
of 1978, the work that first put Grange’s
name on the musical map at the tender
age of twenty two.
Campion’s newest offering
includes another early piece that made
a significant impression at the time
of its Huddersfield Festival premiere
in 1983. Like Cimmerian Nocturne,
The Kingdom of Bones is a remarkably
accomplished work for a composer who
was still only in his mid-twenties.
The work’s conception goes back further,
its slow gestation over a period of
six years being the result of a gradually
evolving consideration of both text
and architecture and placing it as contemporaneous
in thought if not final realisation
with Cimmerian Nocturne. The
composer’s intention in The Kingdom
of Bones was to tackle the issue
of nuclear holocaust. The metaphorical
imagery evoked by texts relating the
tale of a mother and her baby in the
context of a plague-ravaged country
is further darkened by Grange’s use
of the Russian language and the mezzo-soprano
voice, here sung with striking intensity
by Linda Hirst. The work falls into
six sections, at the centre of which
is a pivotal instrumental interlude
that builds ominously to a nightmarish
climax. Grange underpins the structure
of the work with the tolling of bells
at several key points. In line with
its music-theatre origins the result
is one of powerful emotion and drama,
further aided by the 1984 BBC recording
which is every bit as vivid as this
reviewer recalls when it was first broadcast
twenty-three years ago.
The 1993 recording
of Lowry Dreamscape is another
BBC recording, this time drawn from
a broadcast that originally formed part
of the highlights of that year’s BBC
Festival of Brass. Sadly the band that
premiered the work on that occasion,
the Bristol-based Sun Life Band, is
no longer in existence; a great shame
given the evident commitment of the
band’s playing under Roy Newsome. The
connection between L.S. Lowry and the
strong brass band tradition in the North-West
was one that presented itself to the
composer quickly. The title of the work
is drawn from Lowry’s own reference
to many of his paintings as "dreamscapes".
It is in the substantial central section
of the work that Grange embodies the
essence of Lowry’s paintings, the "apocalypse
of grime" that emanated from the
artist’s industrial landscapes. The
faster music is framed by austere flügel
horn solos reflecting the contrasting
personal resonances of the painter’s
sense of artistic isolation.
Designed to be performed
either individually or together the
two contrasting pieces that comprise
Diptych could indeed stand alone
perfectly well. The references to Sky-Maze
with Song Shards that increasingly
surface in Daedalus’s Lament
do however lend a certain unity to the
pairing, despite the very different
atmospheres that permeate each piece.
In Sky-Maze, inspired by the
swooping and diving of birds in flight,
Grange places much of the writing in
the upper reaches of the instrument’s
registers creating often beguiling sounds
of captivating movement and beauty.
The darker tones of the cor anglais
are finely suited to Daedalus’s lamentations
for the loss of his son. In both cases
the performances by Okeanos are beautifully
shaped, in music that displays a differing
aspect of Grange’s considerable musical
imagination.
Likewise the performance
of the demanding Concerto for Clarinet
Radical and Symphonic Wind Band
is one of impressive facility from the
young forces of the National Youth Wind
Ensemble and soloist Sarah Williamson.
The work’s Chinese sub-title translates
as "ever growing, never stopping",
an apt description for a concerto that
seems continuously to gather energy
along its considerable twenty-one minute
path. The "radical" role of
the clarinet sees the soloist veer from
the part of protagonist to suppressor
around half way through, the latter
directly inspired by the memorable television
images of a lone student blocking the
path of tanks in Tianamen Square. Ultimately
the music disintegrates, with shards
of the earlier fast music falling away
to the lonely voice of the clarinet.
Since 2001 Grange has
been employed as Professor of Composition
at the University of Manchester and
the Campion label’s Manchester connections
continue to provide an admirable recorded
platform for a good number of composers
active both in and around Manchester
as well as the North-West generally.
In the case of Philip Grange the BBC
archive has proved to be a fruitful
source of material and it is good to
have the two excellent archive recordings
of The Kingdom of Bones and Lowry
Dreamscape released into the public
domain.
All in all the four
challenging yet highly contrasting works
on this enterprising CD amply demonstrate
the fertile and richly coloured imagination
of a composer whose work is at last
receiving the recorded recognition it
deserves.
Christopher Thomas
for details
Northern Music Theatre/Graham Treacher;
Sun Life Band/Roy Newsome; Okeanos: (Jinny
Shaw (oboe/cor anglais); Lucy Wakeford
(harp)); National Youth Wind Ensemble/Phillip
Scott; Linda Hirst (mezzo); Sarah Williamson
(clarinet) 
