Cevanne HORROCKS-HOPAYIAN (b. 1986)
Welcome Party
rec. 2021, All Saints Tooting, London; St George’s Chesterton, Cambridge, UK
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
NMC D268 [57:48]
This album represents about six years or so in the creative life of the young British composer, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian. During this period, Horrocks-Hopayian took up an LSO Soundhub residency where she was based at 575 Wandsworth Road in London. Much of the music on this CD takes inspiration from a building which is described in the liner notes as:
The former home of the Kenyan-born polymath Khadambi Asalache is from the outside an ordinary Georgian terraced house, but Asalache decorated the interior on every surface, covering it in carved wooden fretwork and an eclectic range of graphic designs.
I am always curious about the decisions that go into the running order of CDs, particularly when, as here, the recording is a mix of different types and styles of composition. What piece is chosen to kick off the collection seems to me a crucial decision. This present release had this thought back in my head as, it seems to me, the first two tracks are amongst the least impressive works included. I suspect the opener, Muted Lines, will speak better to those who enjoy fusion music a lot more than I do. In this case, it felt like tepid jazz meets lukewarm classical. The title track sounds like a decent enough stab at a theme tune for a historical tv drama but little else about it grabbed my attention.
It was with some relief that I reached the paired compositions, the Cave Painter and Cave Painting. The first forms an evocative spoken word poetic introduction to the latter which uses string harmonics to represent the mysterious moment of artistic discovery made by Palaeolithic cave painters. From this point this collection picks up decidedly.
I think Swallows and Nightingales would have made a much more arresting effect as an opening track, not least because of the unique and haunting singing of the composer’s sister. It sets words by the Armenian author Gevork Dodokhian and by Sappho, the former on swallows and the latter on nightingales.
I could take or leave the Bessy Smith tribute, the Ladies, which did little to persuade me I wouldn’t be better off listening to the original. We get back on track with the gorgeous simplicity of Dancing Birds in which slow moving chords are decorated with sliding string harmonica and the chattering birdsong of the woodwind.
Inkwells takes its inspiration from the fabric of the house itself since it uses recordings of the sound of Asalache’s metal inkwells as well as the sound of his thumb piano. Combined they produce an agreeable texture and are prefaced by a reading of one of Asalache’s poems.
The two choral pieces reflect Horrocks-Hopayian’s involvement with the choir of Girton College, Cambridge. Horrocks-Hopayian is clearly very comfortable writing for choir and the second piece, Lullaby for Two, an arrangement of a melody improvised to sing to the composer’s aunt who later died of Covid whilst they were waiting on an ambulance to take her to hospital, is very moving.
Horrocks-Hopayian shows again that she is adept at providing musical accompaniment to the spoken word in Walls and Ways, where she tastefully elaborates a poem by Asalache himself. The poem describes a young man returning to his home after a period of study in England to find himself alienated from where he came from. The music is suitably bittersweet.
The final track – in effect a page from the composer’s notebook or something akin to a field recording - is either whimsical or self-indulgent depending on one’s viewpoint. It is brief enough not to outstay its welcome but I’m not really sure what it brings to the party though it is pleasant enough music. Indeed it seems to sum up my experience of listening to this album: plenty of inspiration but it all could have done with being a bit tighter with a few darlings murdered in the process.
The presentation is exemplary with a full programme note on each piece supplemented with extensive and charmingly idiosyncratic observations by the composer.
With such a diverse collection, it is hard to draw any firm conclusion. My sense is of a composer still finding her voice which means that only some of the pieces on this record achieve real distinction. There is enough here to make Horrocks-Hopayian an exciting prospect for the future.
David McDade
Contents
Muted Lines (2016) [6:46]
Members of the London Symphony Orchestra/Jon Hargreaves Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian (voice)
Trish Clowes (saxophone) Tim Giles (drumkit)
Welcome Party (2021) [3:31]
Members of the London Symphony Orchestra/Jon Hargreaves
The Cave Painter [1:00]
Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian (reader)
Cave Painting (2017) [6:30]
Members of the London Symphony Orchestra/Jon Hargreaves
Swallows and Nightingales [4:22]
Members of the London Symphony Orchestra/Jon Hargreaves Ziazan (voice) Jon Hargreaves
The Ladies [4:01]
Members of the London Symphony Orchestra/Jon Hargreaves, Ziazan (voice) Tim Giles (drumkit)
Dancing Birds [7:03]
Members of the London Symphony Orchestra/Jon Hargreaves
A Poet [0:06]
Ziazan (reader)
Inkwells (2017) [4:35]
Ziazan (voice)
Ser (Love) (2015) [5:56]
Choir of Girton College, Cambridge/Gareth Wilson
Walls and Ways (2017) [5:49]
Ausiŕs Garrigós Morant (clarinet & bass clarinet) Ziazan (reader)
Lullaby Between Two (2021) [5:32]
Choir of Girton College, Cambridge/Gareth Wilson
Bonus: Cassette (sketches) [2:37]
Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian (voice) Choir of Girton College, Cambridge
here
