Painted Light: Solem Quartet

PAINTED LIGHT

SOLEM QUARTET

AYANNA WITTER-JOHNSON

PAINTED LIGHT

SOLEM QUARTET

Amy Tress violin 1

William Newell violin 2

Stephen Upshaw viola

Stephanie Tress cello

Ayanna Witter-Johnson voice (track 14)

Edmund Finnis (b. 1984)

9 Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)

13 Camden Reeves (b. 1974)

15 Joni Mitchell (b. 1943 )

Recorded on 1-3 February 2023

at Willards Barn, Godalming

Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter

24-bit digital editing: Jack Davis

24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter

Cover image © Peggy Cozzi

Design: John Christ

Booklet editor: John Fallas

Session photography: foxbrushfilms.com

Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK

www.delphianrecords.com

@ delphianrecords

@ delphianrecords @ delphian_records

Total playing time

Tracks 1–9 & 13–15 are premiere recordings

Musical pitch is usually described as being high or low, but for the Kpelle people of Liberia it is ‘light’ or ‘heavy’, and the Amazonian Suva tribe use ‘young’ or ‘old’. Whichever words we choose, our fundamental vocabulary for explaining music is steeped in metaphor: instrumental timbre is dark or bright, the pulse might flow or drag, the melody might be jagged or smooth. These descriptions are evocative; our experience of music draws on our sense of time, movement, space – and, in many cases, of the visual.

The Solem Quartet’s album Painted Light presents music that is awash with colour. The two works by Lili Boulanger and Henriëtte Bosmans are from the early twentieth century, when the depth and vividness of colour in Impressionist paintings seemed to have spilled into music. Camden Reeves’s The Blue Windows is infused with the saturated blues of Chagall’s stained-glass triptych America Windows. The sparks of string sound splintering away from Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s voice in her piece Earth have a strikingly visual effect, as do her evocative lyrics. Joni Mitchell’s descriptions of clouds in Both Sides Now – seen as ‘feather canyons’ from above and as darkened obstacles to the sun from below – are a delicate lesson in perspective. In his Devotions (String Quartet No 3), Edmund Finnis’s musical lines are arranged like the compositional elements of a painting.

Finnis writes music of a rare, refined beauty. Whether in his electronic music or that composed for conventional instruments, his language conveys the personal and mysterious with vivid immediacy. The deep roots of tonality and counterpoint that twist back through Western musical history are present here in contrapuntal lines that have the three-dimensional quality of real, fully drawn characters interacting. This is particularly true in Finnis’s string chamber music, including two previous works for string quartet (2018 and 2021). Threads of music come alive in dialogue between the individual players. Finnis seems drawn to two extremes of sonority; the most hushed and secretive draws the listener in, while the purest, most shimmering sounds create a vibrant halo of resonance.

Commissioned by the Solem Quartet, Devotions was conceived as a response to Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 – and particularly to that work’s third movement, ‘Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart’ (‘Sacred hymn of thanksgiving from a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode’ ). This soulful hymn of gratitude, written after Beethoven’s recovery from severe illness, is rooted in medieval church modes and interspersed with episodes of joyful vitality that reverberate with birdsong.

It is the slow sections, however, that permeate the first movement of Finnis’s work. A gravelly chord is built up as the musical lines enter one by one, squeezing, clashing, resolving and straining upwards towards the heavens.

After this musical prayer, the throbbing heartbeat of life returns in the second movement, combined with sparse harmony and modal inflections that give the music an ancient-sounding quality. The third movement evokes simple plainchant in the first violin, while the other instruments create the illusion of the layering of musical sound that takes place in a cathedral acoustic. Earthy drones join in the lower strings, then a celestial descant appears in the second violin’s shimmering harmonics.

The heartbeat buried within the second movement returns more prominently in the fourth, now irregular and urgent, an obsessive bass line adding to the sense of rising intensity. Obsession turns to calm in the repeating ground bass of the fifth movement, a starkly tender – almost naïve – movement that swells with undercurrents of emotion and rhythmic complexity. The sixth movement’s halting chordal unisons evoke a chorale, and the drawing of breath with each line of incantation; in a brief coda, the harmony sours and the mood darkens.

In the seventh movement, a wailing, lonely melody calls out over and over. A chorus of other voices join and crowd together, with waves of overlapping rhythmic figuration. The eighth and final movement is a poignant hymn, its main theme repeating like a prayer whilst the harmonies beneath it shift and intensify, before a final, whispered resolution.

Composed when she was just eighteen, Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne was originally written for flute and piano and subsequently arranged by the composer as one of her Deux Morceaux (‘Two Pieces’) for violin and piano. Though she died tragically young and left behind only a few published works, she is widely regarded as one of the most important female composers of the twentieth century. At this early age, she had already absorbed the harmonic language found in the so-called impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, and indeed, a direct quotation from Debussy’s Prélude à ‘L’après-midi d’un faune’ appears towards the end of the Nocturne.

‘Nocturnes’ had originated as vocal duets with guitar or piano accompaniment, typically performed as evening entertainment; but in solo piano adaptations (first by John Field, then by Chopin) they became staples of the literary and artistic salons of Paris. Chopin’s contributions to the genre, in particular, were sufficiently famous

that other instrumentalists had begun to make arrangements of them – including as charming miniatures for violin and piano.

Boulanger’s Nocturne seems to derive from this trend, particularly in the central section which launches into a series of passionate, virtuoso rising scales. Both in its original versions and in William Newell’s arrangement for string quartet, the opening and closing sections are magical: a murmuring melody over a harmonically static, rocking figure creates a sultry, nocturnal atmosphere.

Henriëtte Bosmans’ Quartet was composed in 1927, after she had begun to study with Willem Pijper (1894–1947) and had developed a more distinctively colourful, twentiethcentury compositional voice than is heard in her earlier, more Romantic compositions. A brilliant pianist, born to a Jewish mother (her cellist father died when she was a few months old) and openly bisexual, she was a remarkable figure and might be better known today if she had not been blacklisted by the Nazis during the Second World War.

A stark pentatonic melody introduces the first movement, before we are thrown headlong into the drama. Impressionistic harmonic language and melodies inflected with whole-tone scales might recall Debussy and Ravel, but in the swirl of musical textures

and quick-fire exchange of dialogue across the ensemble, the first movement bears closer similarity to the two string quartets of Janáček , composed in 1923 and 1928.

The second movement, Lento, is fragile and introspective. A swaying accompaniment lifts the music towards a high cello solo with violins floating far above. The propulsive finale is dominated by a militaristic, galloping rhythm; this figure recedes during a sultry middle section, which features sighing glissandi and dreamy harmonies.

Commissioned by the Solem Quartet, Camden Reeves’s fifth string quartet The Blue Windows was inspired by America Windows (1976), a triptych of stained-glass artworks by Marc Chagall (1887–1985) that were presented to the Art Institute of Chicago in commemoration of the US bicentenary. Chagall, perhaps the pre-eminent Jewish artist of the early twentieth century, had fled Nazi-occupied France for the safety of America during the Second World War, and began experimenting with stained glass on his return, eventually completing 86 windows.

the colour itself, had resulted in the 2019 piano cycle BLUE SOUNDS . When he saw the intensely luminous, saturated blues of Chagall’s America Windows , he found them so overwhelming that the music of The Blue Windows came to him almost fully formed. As the composer writes, ‘individual planes of harmony overlap, interlock, and blend into one another, much like the mosaic quality of Chagall’s windows. Against this shifting background, angels and doves soar in lines of gentle counterpoint, eventually dissolving into the white light of pure overtones.’

Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s Earth is a scintillating work for voice and string quartet, a fusion of her talents as a composer and singer. She is often written into her own compositions as a performer, whether tapping, strumming and bowing her cello, or singing, or both, lending her works a sense of authentic subjectivity. As a second-generation Jamaican born in Britain, her heritage is a source of strength and pride, and an inspiration for many of her songs and compositions.

Picasso supposedly remarked that:

‘ When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour is.’ Reeves’s obsession with the various meanings of the word ‘blue’, as well as with

The piece contrasts strongly with Reeves’s earlier quartets, with their visceral extremes and virtuosity: it is ten minutes of quiet, still music that barely rises to a mezzo piano. The shift from aggression to serenity in his compositional output was a conscious decision, part of the reckoning with (and eventual overcoming of) difficulties earlier in his life. Reeves was born in Oxford in 1974, but spent a troubled period of his childhood in the US, during which time he discovered the music of Beethoven –a formative influence, responsible for his decision to become a musician as well as for his affinity towards the string quartet. Aside from the power of Beethoven’s music, it was the idea of a composer overcoming adversity in such a profound way that proved inspirational for Reeves.

Earth was originally part of a 2018 work for string quartet alone, commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet and Sound and Music, wherein several composers were each assigned one of the planets in our solar system in a reference to Gustav Holst ’s orchestral suite The Planets (1917). A vocal part was added in 2022 with the present recording in view. Earth expresses awe and wonder at the planet’s natural beauty and its place in the cosmos. Witter-Johnson’s pure, agile voice is wrapped in a glimmering, silken layer of string sonorities, the core melody sparking electric reactions or eliciting shuddering chords from the quartet. Moments of percussive rhythmic vitality dissolve into questioning harmony and halting melody; we are left with the repeated phrase, ‘I wonder how ’

As well as being one of the great figures of twentieth-century popular music, Canadian

singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is a painter; the cover art on her 1969 album Clouds is a self-portrait. ‘Here I am,’ she seems to say, eyes fixed, unwavering and deadpan. This attitude is mirrored in the album’s raw, confessional lyrics, which are combined with vocal melodies that swoop between extremes of register and a jangly, pop-inspired sound.

Mitchell’s songwriting has roots in the folk movement of the 1960s, though she grew up far from any of its centres, in smalltown western Canada. Aged nine, she contracted polio, and has suffered from a weakened left hand throughout her life. This led to an idiosyncratic approach to forming chords on the guitar, using unusual tunings, that resulted in a highly distinctive harmonic style. Her suspension-laden guitar writing is poignantly refigured in the string counterpoint of William Newell’s arrangement of Both Sides Now. A meditation on perspective, regret and love, the song was first recorded by Mitchell for Clouds , and then as the title track of an orchestral concept album in 2000; both versions were brought to bear on Newell’s arrangement.

The cover of that 2000 orchestral album is another self-portrait. Head propped against her hand, cigarette smoke filling the frame, with a glass of wine, an ash tray and a vinyl record on the table, Mitchell’s face is pale but

luminous. Two years later, she would turn her back on songwriting to focus on painting, insisting that she is a painter first, musician second. ‘In painting,’ she has said, ‘your brain empties out and there’s not a word in it.’ This wordless condition seems to apply equally to much of the music on Painted Light : the prayer state of Finnis’s Devotions ; the awe expressed wordlessly in Reeves’s The Blue Windows and verbally in WitterJohnson’s Earth; the sense of a distilled moment in Boulanger’s Nocturne ; the humbled unknowing in Both Sides Now ; and even the abstract narrative of Bosmans’ Quartet. For all the possible metaphorical likenesses between the painted, visual world and the musical, the sensory experience is at the heart of both.

© 2023 Anthony Friend

Anthony Friend is a clarinettist acclaimed for the ‘vision and intensity’ of his playing (The Observer). Alongside his work as a performer, he runs concert series such as Spotlight Chamber Concerts (which earned him an award from the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2021), and writes programme notes and liner notes for major festivals and record labels.

Text Earth

Who made the trees?

Who made the universe?

Who made the sun and the sunrise?

I wonder how.

Who made the moon?

And the changing tide go out and in and out and in, out and in?

I wonder how.

Who made the Earth?

And the shooting stars that cross the night sky?

I wonder how.

Here I stand in awe. Here I stand in awe.

© 2022 Ayanna Witter-Johnson

All rights administered worldwide by Faber Music Ltd Reproduced by permission

Biographies

Praised for its ‘immaculate precision and spirit’ (The Strad ) and ‘cultured tone’ (The Arts Desk ), the Solem Quartet has established itself as one of the most innovative and adventurous quartets of its generation. As a 2020 awardee of the Jerwood Arts Live Work Fund – one of 33 artists and ensembles selected from more than 1200 applicants –the Quartet takes its place amongst some of the UK’s brightest artistic voices.

The Quartet enjoys a busy concert schedule, ranging from international tours to performances at venues such as Wigmore Hall and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and Holywell Music Room, Oxford, and has built a strong following since winning the Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble Competition in 2014. Passionate about collaboration, the Quartet has worked with artists from across genres including filmmaker Jessie Rodger, cellist/ singer/composer Ayanna Witter-Johnson and clarinettist/composer Mark Simpson, with whom they appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival and live on BBC Radio 3. They have worked with many of today’s leading composers, including Anna Meredith, Colin Matthews and Thomas Adès, and in 2021 they gave the UK premiere of Jonny Greenwood’s Suite from ‘There Will Be Blood’ for string quartet at the V&A Museum.

The success of their groundbreaking ‘Solem Lates’ concept, created in 2019 with the aim of presenting classical music in a fresh way and reaching broader audiences, has underlined the Quartet’s position as leading exponents of new music. Between 2020 and 2023, the Quartet’s ‘Beethoven Bartók Now’ series featured six major commissions from composers including Edmund Finnis and Bushra El-Turk, as well as a wealth of digital content for new audiences and educational activity for composers.

The Four Quarters , the Solem Quartet’s debut album, was released to critical acclaim in 2021. Using Thomas Adès’s eponymous quartet as a framework, the album features several arrangements by the ensemble as well as composers from Purcell to Cassandra Miller.

The Quartet takes great pride in its educational work. From 2015–17 it held the Junior Fellowship in Chamber Music at the Royal Northern College of Music, and since 2016 has been Quartet in Residence at the University of Liverpool.

Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a multi-talented singer, songwriter, pianist and cellist, seamlessly crossing the boundaries of classical, jazz, reggae, soul and R&B. After graduating with a first-class degree from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, Ayanna participated in the London Symphony Orchestra’s Panufnik Young Composers Scheme. Soon after, as Emerging Artist in Residence at London’s Southbank Centre, Ayanna performed as a featured artist with Courtney Pine’s Afropeans: Jazz Warriors. Later, whilst studying in the USA at the Manhattan School of Music, she became the only nonAmerican to win Amateur Night Live at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem, NYC.

As a composer, Ayanna has been commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, Ligeti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company and many others. She was also selected as an arranger/ orchestrator for the London Symphony Orchestra (Hugh Masekela, Belief ) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (Urban Classic).

Whilst releasing EPs and her debut album Road Runner, Ayanna has extensively toured the UK and Europe, gaining a MOBO Awards nomination and receiving airplay on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra. A performer of extraordinary versatility, her live shows are intimate journeys that chronicle her experience as a female artist in the twenty-first century. Ayanna has collaborated and toured with artists as diverse as Akala, Riz MC, Nitin Sawhney, Anoushka Shankar, Andrea Bocelli and Peter Gabriel, and has headlined at venues such as the Purcell Room and Jazz Café in London and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In addition to her own material, she is currently working on commissioned projects for film, orchestra and choir.

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PRESTO Recordings of the Year 2021 – Finalist

PRESTO Recordings of the Year 2022 – Finalist

Awards

Nominated – ‘Newcomer’ category