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Listening in not-quite-darkness, with only the dim light from my bedside clock radio, I heard An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno. Of course I recognise it, but not quite in this arrangement. The sounds wash gently over me and in the dark and still of the night, it’s intimate and meditative, almost a lullaby.

Listening again, in daytime, in the surround sound of my kitchen HiFi, the music floats, weightless but for a simple sequence picked out on the harp, now growing in intensity with a soaring violin line over lusher instrumental textures….

It’s a soundworld which perfectly exemplifies the ethos and approach of Orchestra of the Swan and artistic director David Le Page, and which is given full creative rein in their latest release, Labyrinths.  With its exploration of themes of isolation, distance and a longing for human connection, it’s an appropriate album for our strange corona times. It also explores ideas of pilgrimage, contemplation and enlightenment, filtered through a sequence of beautifully atmospheric music, imaginatively arranged and exquisitely performed.

Formed in 1995, Orchestra of the Swan (OOTS) is a chamber orchestra based in Stratford-upon-Avon. Under the artistic direction of violinist David Le Page, an innovative, self-contained musician and one of the nicest people I’ve met in the industry, OOTS is passionate about audience inclusivity and this is reflected in its imaginative and adventurous programmes which blur the lines between genres. Labyrinths is the perfect example of the orchestra and its director’s vision. Devised as a “mixtape”, it continues the spirit of the mixtape of the 1980s (something which many of us of a certain age will remember creating for friends and boyfriends/girlfriends) with a diverse compilation of arrangements and reinterpretations of works by an eclectic mix of composers, which, as the album title suggests, takes labyrinthine twists and turns through music from the 14th century to the present day, from Buxtehude to Nico Muhly, Purcell to Brian Eno, and much else in between to delight and intrigue the listener. The range of musicians is equally diverse, including tenor Nicky Spence, saxophonist and composer Trish Clowes, Guy Schalom on darbuka drum, folk singer Jim Moray, and David Gordon on harpsichord.

…the joy is to be found in discovering the surprising and delightful connections between culturally disparate and musically contrasting time periods. Themes of isolation, distance and a longing for human connection are filtered through beautifully atmospheric and exquisitely rendered sound worlds. This last year has been one in which we have all been confronted by the spectre of isolation and have certainly felt the need for face-to-face communication. Labyrinths invites the listener to immerse themselves completely in a sonically rewarding and wholly unexpected musical experience.

– David Le Page, violinist and Artistic Director of Orchestra of the Swan

David Le Page, violinist & Artist Director of OOTS

Labyrinths also celebrates a long tradition of arranging and transcription. This is seen most imaginatively in Jim Moray’s Cold Genius, a modern twist on Purcell’s ‘What power art thou?’ cold song from King Arthur, which in this rendering recalls the iciness of Vivaldi’s Winter with its spikey, slicing string accompaniment to Moray’s hypnotic, pulsing vocals. Or an arrangement of Piazzolla’s ‘Oblivion’, with a haunting clarinet (played by Sally Harrop) and the lush, silky strings of a 1930s cocktail orchestra.

The adventurous spirit of OOTS and David Le Page is evident throughout the album – not only in the arrangements but also the mix of instrumentation, blends of timbres, textures and colours, and the diverse repertoire. There is truly “something for everyone” on this album, and it’s an ideal intro for the classical music ingénue too, with tracks from the world of film, including Yann Tiersen’s soundtrack to Amélie and Max Richter’s ‘On the Nature of Daylight’, which has appeared in films by Martin Scorsese and Denis Villeneuve, and pop music from Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play’ from one of their earliest albums to Joy Division’s ‘New Dawn Fades’.

Tenor Nicky Spence joins the orchestra in the ‘Pastoral’ from Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings; this is preceded by ‘Bounce’, a new work composed by Trish Clowes during lockdown, a jazzy number with Bernstein-infused rhythms and an infectious sense of joy and freedom. Other highlights include ‘La Rotta’, in which Guy Schalom’s darbuka (a kind of drum) brings a raw, contemporary street sound to this Medieval dance, overlaid with fiddle and saxophone masquerading initially as a shawm, then drone, before taking off into an improvisatory flight of fancy.

And that ambient Eno track? It’s the perfect close to this brilliantly conceived, generous and rewarding recording. 

Highly recommended

Labyrinths is available on the Signum label and on streaming platforms including Apple Music and Spotify

Orchestra of the Swan

David Le Page

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It came as no surprise for me to discover that composer Mathieu Karsenti is also a visual artist, whose abstract work reflects the movement, layers, counterpoint and rhythm of music.

His music is often multi-layered and contrapuntal, abstract yet tonal, exploring sonic colours, timbres and textures to create atmospheric, evocative pieces. His new EP, Under Piano Skies, offers the listener a selection of “internal musical landscapes” inspired by weather and the sky. Performed by pianist Marie Awadis, the four pieces on this album reference clouds, weather and sky while taking the listener to abstract realms and places for reflection and pause.

Throughout Karsenti, capitalises on the piano’s resonance and sustaining abilities to create atmospheric washes of sound and colour, the edges between notes and chords often blurred, like a watercolour painting.  In some instances, echo and sound effects are added to enhance the piano sound, but in general the instrument’s own sonic capabilities are sufficient to achieve the composer’s intentions.  ‘Virga’, a piece which starts simply, with two voices, grows increasingly florid with the introduction of repetitive semi-quaver triplet figures over low, sustained chords. With generous use of the pedal, a dramatic resonance and vibration is created, redolent of Somei Satoh’s extraordinary ‘Incarnation II’, before reverting to the simplicity of the opening. 

‘Cerulean’, by contrast, uses a minimal amount of notes, carefully chosen and meticulously organised, to create a work of meditative qualities, its serenity only occasionally disturbed by unexpected harmonies or piquant note blends. 

‘Petrichor’, named after the word for that special smell of pavements after rain and including sound effects of rainfall at the opening and close of the piece, is similarly reflective, impressionistic in character with one or two nods to Debussy and Satie in its melody and harmony. 

‘Nimbus’, marked “dreamy, head in the clouds”, seems to owe something to Morton Feldman in its gentle dynamics, ethereal, ‘floating’ sounds and use of silence; as the final piece on the EP it may end definitively on a long, sustained chord, yet its timbres and mood continue to resonate long after the piano sound has died away. 

The music is elegantly, sensitively played by pianist Marie Awadis, who is able to bring clarity to the sound, especially in the higher range of the piano, while also appreciating the particular effects the composer intends. The result is an album of exquisitely measured, absorbing and atmospheric piano music

Mathieu Karsenti has made the score of the pieces available and this music will certainly appeal to those who enjoy minimalist/post-classical repertoire and exploring the sonic possibilities of the piano (ability level Grade 5-7). 

‘Under Piano Skies’ is available to download or stream and the scores are available to purchase from the composer’s website

Meet the Artist interview with Mathieu Karsenti

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9/11 : 20

Memorials on the twentieth anniversary of September 11th

Adam Swayne, piano

British pianist Adam Swayne’s latest disc marks the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 – a date which is deeply, painfully etched on our collective modern memory – and seeks to demonstrate ways in which composers memorialise or commemorate disaster through works by three American composers which deal with the events of 9/11 and their aftermath.

Karen Walwyn’s suite ‘Reflections on 9/11’ reference September 11, 2001 directly, and the time since, but the attacks themselves are absent. Instead, in Anguish (No. 3)  a plaintive melody is grafted onto an unsettled arpeggio accompaniment, redolent of Ravel’s Ondine. Growing increasingly textural and virtuosic, the music descends into trauma, with dissonant bell-sounds heard through a hectic melee of notes, before a reprise of the opening. Burial (No. 6), by contrast is sombre and introspective with an ostinato bass overlaid by an elegaic melody. A series of key changes lift and pierce before the music settles back into f minor with a sense of acceptance and, ultimately, hope.

These two pieces set the tone for the whole album: here we have music which memorialises rather than portrays the actual cataclysmic events, with a range of emotions from profound melancholy to anger, sorrow to resignation.

The centre-piece of the disc is ‘Sudden Memorials’, a brand new work by Kevin Malone, who has written eight works to date reflecting on the events and aftermath of 9/11. In 2006, he visited Shanksville, Pennsylvania, close to the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93. The perimeter fence is adorned with objects of remembrance and honour, left by visitors to the site; such public forms of commemoration have become common in recent years (flowers, candles, stuffed animals, religious objects) as a means for people to mark their own history and to create a public space for individuals and communities to unite in and express their grief.  Malone’s 30-minute composition captures in sound the instant and transient memorials that friends and relatives leave at the scene of a tragedy. Specially commissioned by Adam Swayne, the music reflects these myriad, fleeting memorials through brief quotations and “found” fragments from and references to, for example, hymn tunes, sports songs, gospel, Debussy, Chopin, lounge jazz and even birdsong; like the personal memorials on the Shanksville fence, these musical fragments are intended to trigger emotional responses from innocence and hope to grief, resignation and spiritual contemplation. The piece is dedicated to Adam Swayne, Adam, who gives the world première of the piece at London’s Wigmore Hall on 11th September 2021 at 1pm, the exact hour in Britain twenty years on the from the beginning of 9/11.

Memorial Fence 4

The other contemporary work on the disc is ‘Missing Towers’ by David Dei Tredici, the third part of his four-part Gotham Glory (2004). A two-part canon is used to symbolise the Twin Towers, while the music seeks to portray in miniature the epic scale of the absence and emptiness created by the collapse of those buildings. An arresting, reflective piece and a fitting close to the album.

 

This is not angry music (for that see Adam Swayne’s previous album). It does not rage against circumstances nor wring its hands in sorrow; yet one senses the grief and fury, held in check but only just beneath the surface. The music is spare, stoical, fragile, tender as a bruise, yet we know the wounds go much, much deeper. It’s music of extraordinary beauty and poignancy, shot through with memories, riven with emotion, yet never sentimental. 

These contemporary pieces are interleaved with works by American composers from a century earlier. ‘The Tides of Manaunaun’ by Henry Cowell (1897-1965) was inspired Irish mythology and portrays the marine effects created when Manaunaun, the Irish god of the sea swayed the particles of the cosmos in rhythmical, tidal movements “so that they should remain fresh when the time came for their use in the building of the universe” (Henry Cowell). The pieces requires the pianist to use the forearm to play large note clusters and the resulting timbres, textures and rolling rhythms are evocative of the violent movement of the ocean (and by association, perhaps, the roar of explosions and the sounds of falling buildings?). Over this dramatic, plangent bass line is a melody suggestive of an American hymn tune or spiritual. By contrast, ‘Fabric’ is almost romantic in style, but its contrapuntal lines and twining melody ensure the music never fully settles. In ‘Aeolian Harp’, Cowell utilises the piano’s strings which are strummed and plucked to create a piece of naive intimacy and delicacy.

Solace by Scott Joplin draws on Cuban habanera and Argentine tango, as well as the African American Ragtime for which Joplin is best known. Not only does the work create a wistful interlude of calm and reflection, it is also a reminder of the diversity of America’s culture and its people.

IMG_9752Adam Swayne is masterful and convincing in this repertoire, bringing virtuosic swagger when required, tempered by sensitively shaped phrases and spare rubato. The emotions and memories aroused by the music are never far from the surface, but Swayne ensures the main message remains clear: this is music about remembrance, reflection and commemoration. Like his previous album, Speak To Me, Swayne has brought together a fascinating range composers and music whose fundamental messages will resonate with many people. This is his personal memorial to the terrible events of 9/11.

The album cover image is a print of a wire sculpture by Scottish artist Vanessa Lawrence called “Together”. Vanessa was undertaking an artist residency in the North Tower on 9/11 and witnessed the terrible events at close-hand.

9/11 : 20 is released on September 11, 2021 on the Coviello Contemporary label and via streaming services. Album launch and concert at London’s Wigmore Hall on 11th September.

adam_swayne5
Adam Swayne

 

Adam Swayne’s career spans the roles of soloist, composer, conductor and teacher. He takes an inclusive and innovative approach to performance, putting communities at the heart of the music-making.

Adam is Deputy Head of Keyboard Studies at the RNCM and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He studied as a Fulbright Scholar with Ursula Oppens at Northwestern University in Chicago between 2003 and 2006. He has been fascinated by America and American music ever since.

Adam’s first CD for Coviello, (speak to me), featured American political music ranging from Amy Beth Kirsten to Rzewski, was selected as an Instrumental Monthly Choice by BBC Music Magazine, and received two nominations at the 2019 Opus Klassik awards in Germany.

Adam is concerned with the importance of music in commemoration. In 2012 he organised concerts for the centenary of the Titanic disaster, including a performance of Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic in Southampton’s Guildhall on the exact anniversary of the tragedy.

Track list for ‘9/11:20’:

  • Karen Walwyn: Reflections on 9/11 (Nos. 3+6)
  • Henry Cowell: The Tides of Manaunaun, Fabric + Aeolian Harp
  • Kevin Malone: Sudden Memorials
  • Scott Joplin: Solace
  • David Del Tredici: Missing Towers

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This recent release by Duncan Honeybourne on the EMR label makes a persuasive and highly listenable case for lesser-known English composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Recorded in August 2020 at Potton Hall, between lockdowns, as it were, Duncan Honeybourne, by his own admission, feels this is his best work to date. While many of us chafed at the enforced isolation and restrictions, Honeybourne has used the time extremely productively (he has also just released a recording of piano music by the late John Joubert – more here). Freed from a busy concert schedule, Honeybourne has welcomed the opportunity to “reconnect” with the piano and really immerse himself in the repertoire he most enjoys and loves.

A champion of lesser-known English piano music, Honeybourne’s affection for and understanding of the pieces on this disc is evident throughout in performances which reveal an acute appreciation of the wide variety of styles, moods and textures of this repertoire. The result is a generous 2-disc album which contains no less than eight world premiere recordings of works by Christopher Edmunds, Edgar Bainton, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, and Richard Pantcheff.

The title of the disc is taken from Psalm 103 (“out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord“), appropriately for the three substantial piano sonatas which frame the complete programme – from Edmunds’ big boned, luxuriantly romantic piano sonata, composed in 1938, with its nods to Liszt and Rachmaninoff in both its scale and breadth of expression, to the Bridge sonata written in the aftermath of the First World War – a work of utter desolation which calls out for reconciliation and forgiveness in a world torn apart by conflict, and Richard Pantcheff’s Sonata of 2017, written for Duncan Honeybourne, which although divided by almost a century, shares the dark, brooding emotional bleakness of Bridge’s work. Honeybourne captures the intensity and range of sentiment in these three sonatas and does not shy away from bravura virtuosity in the first movement of the Edmunds Sonata, which opens the album with its vivid first statements offset in the middle movement by a melting tenderness and warmth.

These substantial, dramatic works are complemented and contextualised by shorter works, mostly pastoral in theme, poetic and rhapsodic in nature, and lyrically presented by Honeybourne. Hubert Parry’s delightful ‘Shulbrede Tunes’ are affectionate, sometimes wistful portraits of the composer’s family and their Sussex home; Bainton’s ‘Willows’ and ‘The Making of the Nightingale’ are contemporary with Bridge’s Sonata, tender and evocative pastoral pieces; while Pantcheff’s Nocturnus V: Wind oor die Branders evokes the wind on the waves in his native South Africa. Another nocturne,  Britten’s atmospheric ‘Night Piece’ portrays nighttime scurryings and chirrups.

Friendships and teacher-pupil relationships connect the selection of pieces on this album: Frank Bridge taught Benjamin Britten, who in his later years mentored Richard Pantcheff. Honeybourne studied Britten’s Night Piece with Dame Fanny Waterman, founder of the Leeds International Piano Competition, for which the nocturne was commissioned as a test piece.

This is engaging collection of distinctive and diverse piano music offers listeners the opportunity to explore some stunning, lesser-known gems of the repertoire

emr-cd070-71Of the recording, Honeybourne says: “It was a joy to devise this programme, featuring some masterpieces I’ve known for a long time and love dearly, alongside the stunning Pantcheff Sonata, which I premiered in 2019 in London at an English Music Festival concert. It is a special privilege to present the recorded premieres of some terrific pieces that have languished in manuscript for many decades, and I hope listeners will get as much pleasure from hearing these wonderful gems as I have from all the excavation and preparation. It’s a great honour to bring them all together on this release.”

De Clamavi Profundis is released on the EM Records label.

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