Fortissimo Spring 2015 by Faber Music

FABER MUSIC NEWS SPRING 2015

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Special features: Tansy Davies on her opera Between Worlds Adès Ballet Sensation Colin Matthews’s Pied Piper

Highlights • Tuning In • New Publications & Recordings • Music for Now • Publishing News

Dear colleagues, Faber Music’s 50th anniversary allows us a moment to consider its role in the explosion of British compositional talent in the last decades, as well as our aspirations for the next half century! Publication of scores to the highest level, by employing world-renowned editors, has always been at the heart of our activities. Along with an on-going commitment to the highest standards of cover design, this pursuit of editorial quality has enabled us to attract the best composers. We have not swerved from these principles even in an increasingly ephemeral, digital world. That said, we embrace new opportunities and already most of the works by our leading composers can be viewed on our Online Score Library. In the last 18 months, we are proud to have published George Benjamin’s award-winning Written on Skin, and Thomas Adès’s Polaris which recently enjoyed sell-out ballet performances at Sadler’s Wells. The same period has seen newly-published scores by Vaughan Williams, Peter Sculthorpe, Carl Vine, David Matthews, Julian Anderson, John Woolrich, Nicholas Maw and Martin Suckling. This month, we release the full scores of Oliver Knussen’s iconic Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Francisco Coll’s Piano Concerto and Olivier Messiaen’s La Fauvette Passerinette. Further ahead, we look forward to Adès’s Powder Her Face, Anderson’s Poetry Nearing Silence and Tansy Davies’s Nature. Our role in the lives of these major composers is not confined to publication, however. We continue to act as an interface between orchestras, opera and ballet companies, radio and TV producers, record companies, and performers of all kinds, in our efforts to promote and promulgate the important music of today. We believe that in our tireless efforts to promote, publish and represent our composers we are true to the vision of our founder Benjamin Britten. As music by our composers travels across the Atlantic and all around Europe, championed by the major orchestras and performers of our day, we urge you to join them, believe in the best, and explore our burgeoning catalogue of pieces, which need to be heard and heard again! We hope you will continue to support our efforts by your on-going interest in our composers and by your plans to programme their music. Please let us know how we can aid your decisions further, and keep in touch. Yours sincerely,

Sally Cavender Performance Music Director/Vice Chairman, Faber Music 2

Faber Music at 50 I Beginnings ‘I occasionally dream of Faber & Faber – music publishers!’ So wrote Benjamin Britten in 1964 in a letter to Donald Mitchell that proved to be the catalyst for Faber Music. Britten’s vision was for a music publisher to compare with the famed literary house Faber & Faber, working to an utterly uncompromising agenda, unfettered by the strait-jacket of corporate bureaucracy. With co-architect Donald Mitchell, his vision was realised just 18 months later, when he became the company’s first contracted composer. Faber and Faber’s decision to establish a music publishing venture from scratch was a courageous one that demonstrated a remarkable act of faith. It was the first serious music publishing firm to be established in the UK since the founding of the Oxford University Press music division in 1925. Faber’s decision entailed heavy investment, with virtually no prospect of financial return in the near future. In the time it would take to build sales, there would be no covering income from a backlist of publications, the buttress enjoyed by established firms to cover their investment in young composers. Without doubt, Donald Mitchell was the crucial figure in establishing Faber Music as a viable operation. As well as shepherding it through the early stages, his musical enthusiasms, contacts and energy were basically responsible for the nature and shape of its early publishing programme. By the middle of 1964, plans had already begun to develop. In addition to the contract to publish Curlew River as the first major Britten project, Mitchell had also secured the option to publish Raymond Leppard’s ground-breaking realisation of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. The company would go on to publish his performing versions of Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Cavalli’s L’Ormindo and, whilst these editions have since been supplanted, their influence in widening an appreciation for the riches of this repertoire was unparalleled.

HIGHLIGHTS

‘I occasionally dream of Faber & Faber – music publishers!’ Benjamin Britten

The decade leading to 1990 was a period of continued expansion for Faber Music. As its financial strength increased, so new composers joined: David Matthews, Nicholas Maw, Robert Simpson, Howard Blake, Dominic Muldowney and John Woolrich. Recent years have seen the addition of Thomas Adès, Tansy Davies, Julian Anderson, the expansion of Faber’s Australian connection with Carl Vine and Matthew Hindson, and more recently the signing of three leading voices from the younger generation: Martin Suckling, Francisco Coll and Tom Coult.

III Diversification One of the first publishing perspectives opened up by Faber Music was on the music of Holst and Bridge, Britten’s formative teacher. Several major works by these composers that had been thought lost, or that had remained unpublished, now became available. In essence, there was a sustained commitment to the works of four composers other than Britten: Malcolm Arnold, Roger Smalley, Humphrey Searle (a pupil of Webern whose centenary falls this year) and Peter Sculthorpe who, though popular in his native Australia, was little-known in Europe.

II Development Quite soon, a decision was made to develop a strategy for educational music as well as early music editions. Faber Music was fortunate that its first educational venture, the Waterman/Harewood Piano Series (featured later in this issue), quickly became renowned for its fresh and invigorating approach which marked it as one of the first ‘modern’ piano tutors. Education publishing has since leapt on with many iconic books by Paul Harris, as well as Pam Wedgwood, and most recently Lang Lang. Benjamin Britten’s ill health during the gestation and composition of Death in Venice had a positive side in the recruitment of Colin Matthews to prepare the vocal score. Soon after the project, Matthews joined Faber Music as a composer in his own right – the first of several young composers to join the company in the late 70s, including George Benjamin, Anne Boyd, Jonathan Harvey and Oliver Knussen.

In 2005 the educational and recreational printed music lists expanded dramatically both in scale and musical breadth through a bold, long-term, exclusive European print licence deal with Warner Chappell. This encompassed some of the most famous names in popular 20th-century music: Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, a comprehensive array of Broadway and West End musicals and some of the biggest names in contemporary rock and pop. Faber Music’s now substantial media division represents Carl Davis, Howard Goodall and other outstanding internationally-established composers of music for film and television, and through its subsidiary, Rights Worldwide, offers a specialist service of copyright administration to media composers and production companies. Fifty years since its birth, Faber Music is nothing short of a phenomenon: one of the proudest, most distinguished composer rosters in the industry; a world leader in educational and popular printed music and a breathtaking array of award-winning film and television scores. The common thread tying together every strand of this publishing house’s activity is an uncompromising commitment to quality. But the works of its contemporary, media and educational composers are the lifeblood both of the company and the market it serves, enriching the lives of millions daily through live events, recordings and broadcasts, as Faber Music looks forward to its next 50 years as a publisher of contemporary classical, media and educational music of the highest quality. In compiling this history of Faber Music, we are indebted to David Wright’s ‘Faber Music: The First 25 Years’

SCORE: BRITTEN STRING QUARTET NO.3

Tansy Davies - Between Worlds felt creative and positive. What I’ve found is that there’s a flexibility in both of us, coupled with a mercurial way of thinking that allows us to take huge leaps of faith together, and to throw out ideas that at first might seem very wild, or even silly. Shamanic thought has influenced a number of your previous pieces [Nature, Iris] on a conceptual or formal level and plays an important role in your opera. What first attracted you to these ideas and can you explain to readers what role they play here?

Between Worlds, the highly anticipated operatic debut from Tansy Davies, opens at the Barbican Theatre, London on 11 April. A bold and highly individual response to the events of 9/11, the opera, commissioned by English National Opera, brings Davies together with and librettist Nick Drake and acclaimed director Deborah Warner. A disparate group of individuals is trapped high up in one of the Twin Towers, caught between earth and heaven, life and death. As the opera progresses, it opens out to a universal panorama of human beings in extremis. Contemporary music specialist Gerry Cornelius conducts a cast that includes countertenor Andrew Watts as the Shaman and mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley as Mother. Lasting around 90 minutes, with no interval, the opera is scored for 16 singers, chorus and a small orchestra of 35. Fortissimo caught up with Davies during rehearsals to find out more. How did the opera come about? I met Nick in 2008 to discuss the possibility of working together on an opera. We had a subject and story in mind that had a focus on the Twin Towers, but not on the events of 9/11. That changed over time as a result of our continued and ever expanding talks. Deborah Warner joined our conversation in 2010 and after that the subject began to shift towards the events of 9/11 and we moved slowly but surely towards the creation of Between Worlds. In addition to working with Nick Drake on this opera you’ve also set some of his poetry in songs. What particularly attracts you to his work and how do you find collaborating with him? In 2009 I set two of Nick Drake’s poems, This Love and Static. Nick and I became friends right from the start and have a natural way of working and being together that has always

PHOTO: TANSY DAVIES © RIKARD ÖSTERLUND

For me the act of composing requires the unique skill of combining a lot of technique or brain-power, with a kind of letting go of the mind or the self entirely. The technique part, acquired over a lifetime in music, becomes the vehicle for potential journeys of the soul, but there has to be letting go of any notion of what’s known or expected in order to allow these journeys to happen. I think musicians are very often like shamans and vice-versa; sound is important in shamanism, as is ritual, which is important in music. Shamans use rattles, drums, and compose unique songs or icaros to enable them to travel through levels of consciousness to communicate with the spirits of ancestors, animals and even plants, in acts of ritual healing. Music can reach or open up different spaces within us, lift our spirits and ultimately lead to transcendental experiences. Much of your music is made from an almost obsessive reworking, or kaleidoscoping, of very small building blocks. How did you go about tackling this, your longest work to date? Did you have to find new compositional strategies? Although there are similarities in the techniques I develop for different works, I always start off from the perspective of stepping into unexplored territory, but of course some steps are bigger than others! Before composing Between Worlds I don’t think I had made a conscious or wholehearted decision to look in depth at the meaning and potential of the vertical harmony in my music. In composing the opera I took a big step into my own harmonic world, which became both a map and a guiding light, leading me through the terrain of Between Worlds. Actually I began as I often do, by making a horizontal line of pitches, led by the spaces and relationships between them. I then traced patterns through the line, forming an elaborate web of interconnected notes that later I turned on end; stacking them up into vertical positions to form eleven big chords. These chords became both structural pillars for the eleven scenes, and the substance for a stream of unending orchestral waves that course freely through the entire opera on horizontal trajectories. In some philosophies, the number eleven is considered an important spiritual number; in the I Ching, Hexagram 11 translates as ‘peace’. In Numerology, the 11 symbolizes the potential to push the limitations of the human experience into the stratosphere of the highest spiritual perception; the link

HIGHLIGHTS

between the mortal and the immortal; between man and spirit; between darkness and light; ignorance and enlightenment. And visually I saw the shape of number 11 mirroring the structures of the Twin Towers.

upon an opera broadcast. Which opera I’ll never know, but I remember that family weren’t interested but didn’t want to spoil my fun, so they left the room and closed the doors, leaving me all alone to enjoy my first opera!

Another important musical element is a tapestry of interwoven cycles of closely related pitches that revolve simultaneously at different speeds. This forms what I call the ‘fabric of the universe’, and represents the long distance view of the events of the opera; a view from the cosmos or the void; the space in which the Shaman (one of the key characters) dwells. The texture of this material is glassy and veil-like, and often hovers as background vibration to scenes that take place inside one of the towers; where individuals within the glassy structure move closer to the veil between life and death.

I didn’t have any in mind when I wrote Between Worlds, but some of my favourite operas are Berg: Wozzeck, Strauss: Die Frau Ohne Schatten, Wagner: Das Rheingold, Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande, Benjamin: Written on Skin, Lachenmann: The Little Match Girl and Sciarrino: Infinito Nero.

A further compositional technique I developed for the opera is something I call ‘Tree-form’. Located along a melodic cell or line are specific points of renewal or ‘nodal points’ out of which branch different versions of the same cell, all unfolding in different directions and at different speeds and all containing their own new ‘nodal points’. This material is heard during moments of reflection and mourning for those lost and, for me, represents the interconnectedness of life or the ‘tree of life’, and the potential for new growth and new life out of chaos and death. Is opera a form that has always meant a lot to you? Which operas do you admire and did you have any in mind when you were writing yours? I loved opera as a child; one of my earliest memories is of being transfixed to the TV when I accidentally happened

Many of your pieces incorporate electronics, but they are notably absent here... Why is that? The two main reasons I didn’t use electronics were, firstly the practical side; the matter of budget and the additional complications that electronics bring. And secondly a desire to create the sound of opera as much as possible from living souls, since focus of the opera is a journey of the human soul, and about souls reaching out to each other across time and space. As an artist my intention is to look for the truth and the heart of any project I undertake and my overriding desire is to give more to the world than I take. Like many, I feel an urge to respond to negative actions with positive ones; to try to transform bad into good, and this is an area in which art can be very effective. We know from the beauty of art created through the centuries, that from the depths of darkness and pain can spring healing and renewal. Going deep into the pain and shining a light into the darkest corners of humanity, through music, can help lift the energy around us, help us understand ourselves and each other, and help bring about a healing vibration.

Nick Drake On Writing The Libretto Between Worlds focuses on the relationships and emotions at the centre of the tragedy, inside and outside the towers. We tell the story of six individuals whose days start like any other, but ends in the most devastating of circumstances. Trapped on a high floor, they face the unimaginable possibility that they will never see their loved ones again. We were acutely aware this was dark and perhaps controversial matter for any drama; but above all we wanted to create an opera that was poetic, spiritual, and ultimately uplifting. We wanted to draw light out of the darkness.

human sorrow and grief to which art attests. The Latin Requiem Mass is, perhaps, the greatest text of all in this respect, and has inspired countless composers. So I have counterpointed, and sometimes collided, the two languages, the modern and the ancient, in the libretto.

But how to find words for something so unbearable, so unspeakable? The first answer came from the recorded material from that day; first-hand accounts, news and radio broadcasts, and above all the messages, released by WikiLeaks, which begin with the routine business of daily normality – and then suddenly transmute into confusion, shock, terror, and finally the desperate need to communicate last messages of love. The heart-breaking poetry in these devastating, elemental communications became the DNA of the libretto.

The events at the World Trade Center evolved, from the impact of the first plane to the collapse of the north tower, in 102 minutes. Real time; unredeemable time; but, also, as has been noted, the length of a film, or a play, with a terrible dramatic unity of place, and a cruel, exponential action of beginning, middle and end.

Between Worlds is about a very contemporary event but at the same time, it belongs to the timeless and universal story of

The libretto, priced at £7.99, is available from the Faber Music Store (ISBN 0-571-53910-6)

Between Worlds explores the tragedy of 9/11, but it also celebrates the enduring, transcending power of love, and we hope leaves the audience with a sense of hope.

Adès Ballet Sensation

‘See the Music, Hear the Dance’, an enthralling all-Adès evening featuring the Britten Sinfonia, soprano Claire Booth and the composer as both conductor and pianist, thrilled audiences at Sadler’s Wells for three nights in October. The programme showcased Adès’s huge variety, from Alexander Whitley’s nuanced mirrorings of the formal architectures of the Piano Quintet, Karole Armitage’s teasing Life Story, and Wayne McGregor’s sleek and poised response to the Violin Concerto (performed here by Thomas Gould). Most striking was Crystal Pite’s Polaris, which repeatedly harnessed the strength and clarity of Adès’s abstract structures to create momentous points of arrival and change, spectacularly evoking everything from quivering insects to galaxies and chains of DNA whilst never forgetting the music’s human element: a collective mass of bodies leaning, running and lunging in response to the work’s powerfully magnetic harmonies. ‘Talk about musical riches. Dance rarely has it this good... The programme ended on an epic – and sensational – note. Pite’s Polaris is a stunning monster of a piece for a cast of 64… [It] features huge and exciting spirals of movement, astonishing Mexican waves and even a hint of night terrors... Britten Sinfonia tore the roof off Sadler’s Wells with the sheer magnetism and force of his amazing score.’ The Times (Debra Craine), 3 November 2014

‘None of the four scores was originally composed for dance: but each offers an exhilarating, challenging inspiration… Polaris shows the talented Pite working at an exceptional level of confidence.‘ The Guardian (Judith Mackrell), 2 November 2014

‘It doesn’t feel too fanciful to see this inventive, pioneering British composer as a Stravinsky of our time... In Polaris, Pite responded with a visceral, exhilarating punch of her own... An extraordinary feat of discipline and imagination, as dancers run as fast as they can or freeze absolutely, or unfold like ropes, or lower their elbows in a synchronised line, like the teeth of a cog. In between these thrilling swathes of movement, Pite creates more tender, questioning sections... giving the piece focus and depth, conjuring an entire world.’ The Telegraph (Sarah Crompton), 1 November 2014

A Stravinsky of our time’ ‘Adès and McGregor make a good match. The way the composer treats tonality – not discarding it but expanding it, recasting it – is not dissimilar to McGregor’s attitude towards classical technique… The best is left until last… Pite had to come up with a big idea to match the eponymous score, which is cinematic in scope.’ The London Evening Standard (Lyndsey Winship), 3 November 2014

‘The score is inexorable’ ‘Three works on show had already been made – tribute to the power of Adès’s music to speak to choreographers, inspired by its rhythmic wealth, its sonorities, its grand momentum… The astonishment of the evening was Pite’s realisation of Adès’s tremendous Polaris, which might – rather obviously – be called a Rite of Spring for our time, so tribal its forces, so massive its effects, so driven its manner. The score is inexorable… The piece is a marvel in its sweep of energies, marvellously conceived and done.’ Financial Times (Clement Crisp), 4 November 2014

PHOTOS: PITE’S POLARIS AT SADLER’S WELLS © ANDREW LANG

‘McGregor’s trademark direction-changing, kinetic, hyper-flexible style was a good match for the phenomenal Violin Concerto… In Life Story, it’s very much the music we note first...the piano’s opening notes bubble up, low and liquidly percussive as percolating coffee… Pite, in choreographing Polaris… has chosen to “see” the music by matching it with an equally cinematic, visually transporting piece of dance… matching the theatricality of Adès’s score (played from corners of the auditorium as well as from the pit, with the composer himself at the baton) with something just as impressive.‘ The Arts Desk (Hannah Weibye), 1 November 2014

HIGHLIGHTS

The Pied Piper The Pied Piper of Hamelin – a 40-minute work for narrators, children’s choir and orchestra written by Colin Matthews in collaboration with the award-winning author Michael Morpurgo – was premiered in February by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski. Commissioned in tandem with orchestras in Sydney and Seattle, Matthews’s vivid and engaging score premiered as an upbeat opener to Southbank Centre’s ‘Imagine’ children’s festival. Inhabiting the same beguiling world as Matthews’s masterful Debussy orchestrations, the work was further enhanced through the projection of Emma Chichester Clark’s evocative illustrations from the original book. This is Matthews’s third piece to involve children, the others being Alphabicycle Order (2007) written for the Hallé to a text by Christopher Reid and Machines and Dreams – A Toy Symphony (1990) for the LSO and Michael Tilson Thomas. ‘Matthews’s new score does not talk down to the youngest in its audience – something in which he emulates his mentor Benjamin Britten… The music is more than illustrative. The Piper’s instrument of enchantment is a flute, and Matthews uses a quote from Debussy’s famous flute solo Syrinx as a kind of touchstone. It leads off at the beginning, then emerges from the orchestra at the moment of rat-charming, sounding beguiling over muted strings and harp. The music that charms the children away, however, is a wistful jig. The door opens to reveal the Piper for the first time with a grand, fateful theme that returns, with greater menace, when the hillside opens up… The piece is beautifully judged, and the LPO did it full justice.’ The Guardian (Erica Jeal), 9 February 2015

‘...beautifully judged...’ ‘A vivid retelling. It’s a story tailored for two narrators with raucous and dreamy children’s choruses and a sophisticated orchestral score… Matthews draws from a rich pattern book for his music of infestation and enchantment, pomp and squalor. There are glistening shards of Bartók and Janáček, wry nods to Wagner and a cleverly reframed homage to Debussy’s story of a more adult seduction, Syrinx.’

Faber at Aldeburgh

Featuring no fewer than six Faber composers, this summer’s Aldeburgh Festival looks set to be particuarly vibrant and stimulating. George Benjamin will be Artist-in-Residence, appearing as conductor, pianist and curator in what will be the largest UK retrospective of his work since the Southbank Centre’s ‘Jubilation’ festival in 2012. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (with whom Benjamin worked closely on the premiere of Written on Skin) will feature prominently; François-Xavier Roth conducts them in the Three Inventions for chamber orchestra whilst Benjamin himself will join them and soprano Claire Booth for his A Mind of Winter and the first performance of a new work by Faber Music’s most recent signing, Tom Coult. Benjamin will also conduct the London Sinfonietta in a programme which includes At First Light alongside Oliver Knussen’s Songs Without Voices. A new Clarinet Trio by Martin Suckling will be unveiled by the stellar line up of Mark Simpson, JeanGuihen Queyras and Tamara Stefanovich, whilst audiences will also be offered the opportunity to hear violinist Isabelle Faust’s account of Benjamin’s exquisite Three Miniatures and Louis Lortie in the captivating intricacies of the six canonic preludes for piano, Shadowlines. Other highlights include mezzo-soprano Christine Rice joining Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen for a performance of Britten’s Phaedra and the Doric Quartet in Thomas Adès’s second string quartet The Four Quarters.

The Times (Anna Picard), 11 February 2015

ILLUSTRATION: THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN © EMMA CHICHESTER CLARKE, WITH PERMISSION FROM WALKER BOOKS UK

Martin Sucklling Selected forthcoming performances New work World premiere 20.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Tamara Stefanovich/Mark Simpson/JeanGuihen Queyras

Three Venus Haiku 21.8.15, Edinburgh Fringe, Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Malcolm Arnold Selected forthcoming performances Concerto for Clarinet No 2 14.4.15, Helen M Hosmer Concert Hall, Potsdam, NY, USA : The Crane School of Music, SUNY-Potsdam/ Cameron Hewes/Ching-Chun Lai

Anniversary Overture 22.5.15, Open University Campus, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK: Open University Symphony Orchestra/Hugh Malloy

Symphony No 7 17.10.15, The Malcolm Arnold Festival, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, UK: BBC Concert Orchestra/Martin Yates

Martin Suckling The Publication of Candlebird Faber Music published the full score of Candlebird in February to coincide with the revival of the piece by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with whom Suckling is composer in residence. The five songs that make up this exquisite 25-minute work for baritone and large ensemble are all settings of texts by Don Paterson. Only the central song, Motive, is a Paterson ‘original’: the others are his versions of evocative texts by Robert Desnos, Antonio Machado, and Abbas Ibn Al-Ahnaf. Suckling has compared this process of remaking the poems with the process of setting the texts to music. The Scottish performances, with baritone Mark Stone and Nicholas Collon, who conducted the work’s premiere with the London Sinfonietta, were well received and brought out the vivid immediacy of this generous and considered work. ‘...a set of five songs... which were commandinglydelivered, in speech and song, by baritone Mark Stone, spoke of love and nature and were gleamingly-crafted by this gifted young composer, draped and coloured with Suckling’s characteristically needle-sharp, exquisite palette of orchestration that set the music alight. A mesmerising piece.’ The Herald (Michael Tumelty), 1 March 2015

Spotlight on Nocturne With its bold, imaginative and technically-assured string writing, Martin Suckling’s Nocturne builds on the success of his Violin Concerto de sol y grana (2011) and looks forward to his four Postcards for string ensemble (2013). A concentrated exploration of the spectral sonorities which have come to typify his music, Nocturne is direct and communicative, drawing on clear, muscular gestures, often built around small repeating cells of material (a device also present in the earlier concerto). Two materials alternate: a microtonally-inflected lullaby on the one hand and a shadow world of loops and dances on the other. A skilled violinist himself, Suckling displays an intuitive understanding of how to balance this highly-wrought musical language with the capabilities of the instruments whilst never losing sight of the music’s expressive function. Commissioned by Aldeburgh Music, Nocturne was first performed by Pekka Kuusisto and Peter Gregson. The work has also been championed by the London Contemporary Orchestra who featured it in their innovative chamber music series at the Limewarf, Hackney.

Malcolm Arnold A Further Recording of the Seventh Symphony Such is the appeal of Arnold’s Seventh Symphony that it now boasts four separate commercial recordings. The latest account of this startlingly original work (arguably the most deeply personal of all Arnold’s nine symphonies) from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Martin Yates emphasises the work’s softer edges, never more so than in the sonorous Mahlerian gravitas of the slow movement. The disc also features Arnold’s dazzling and vivacious Philharmonic Concerto (which the composer thought of as a summation of ‘the glorious sound of the orchestra’) alongside the darker and more complex John Field Fantasy for piano and orchestra.

The score of Candlebird, priced at £24.99, is available from the Faber Music Store (ISBN 0-571-53889-4)

TUNING IN

Julian Anderson 300 Christmas Carols Whilst Anderson’s first opera Thebans continued to garner critical acclaim at English National Opera, last May also saw the world premiere of his Second String Quartet, ‘300 Weihnachtslieder’, as part of his ongoing residency at London’s Wigmore Hall. Performed by its dedicatees, the matchless Arditti Quartet, this bold and vibrant work received a rapturous reception – a reaction repeated at its German premiere at the Berlin Philharmonie in October. The work has also enjoyed the advocacy of the FLUX Quartet, who have given four US performances to date (Santa Fe, La Jolla and Pittsburgh’s Beyond Microtonal Music Festival). Perhaps as a response to the formidable capabilities of the Ardittis, this is Anderson’s most ambitious exploration of unconventional tuning systems to date, drawing much of its character from the rich sonorities of church bells which also underpin his orchestral works Symphony (2003) and Eden (2005). As its subtitle suggests, the seven-movement work draws on a wealth of traditional German Christmas songs. Whilst these melodies rarely rise to the surface of the music, their spirit, varying and lively contours, and their texts nevertheless leave a strong imprint on every bar. The 17-minute work begins with each of the instruments tuned conventionally, but as it develops scordaturas are employed to lend certain passages specific hues. In the last three movements, which run without a break, the cello (like in Schumann’s Piano Quartet) tunes its C string down a tone, further expanding the resonant possibilities of the ensemble and thus enabling visceral, weighty climaxes. This is music of startling concentration: at times, the texture is so complex that bowing position, pressure and changes all require notation on separate staves.

‘A remarkable, immensely demanding piece. Its sheer richness, range of expression and intensity suggest that perhaps the opera [Thebans] was a musical watershed for the composer, and that achieving it has opened up a whole new range of musical possibilities… [Sound spectra] colour and flavour the music in an indefinable way, adding an elusive dimension to Anderson’s fiercely demanding quartet writing.’ The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 16 May 2014

‘The music has a light touch, using non-standard tuning and effects such as “vertical bowing” to create a world of reflections where nothing is quite as it seems. The carols emerge as glimpses of something substantial in a prism of flickering lights; or the echoes of distant bells delicately ringing in the season; or, at the end, a nostalgic epilogue that evaporates into a haze of tremolos, pizzicatos and harmonics. There are seven movements, totalling not much more than a quarter of an hour, so the overall effect is rather fragmentary, but the quartet creates an alluring world of its own. It is getting on for 20 years since the ever expert Arditti Quartet suggested to Anderson that he should write a work for them. They should feel it was worth the wait.’ The Financial Times (Richard Fairman), 18 May 2014

Julian Anderson Selected forthcoming performances Thebans (German premiere) 3, 10, 16, 22, 31 May, 4 June 2015, Theater der Bundesstadt, Bonn, Germany: Theater Der Stadt Bonn/ dir. Pierre Audi/cond. Johannes Pell

Poetry Nearing Silence 7.7.15, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Aurora Orchestra

String Quartet No.2 26.7.15, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox, MA, USA: Fromm Players

Eden 25-26.9.15, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/George Benjamin

Book of Hours / Scherzo (with trains) 12.11.15, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Philharmonia Orchestra (Music of Today)/Antony Hermus

Works composed by Julian Anderson from August 2014 onwards are published by Schott Music

PHOTO: ARDITTI QUARTET © ASTRID KARGER | SCORE: ANDERSON STRING QUARTET NO. 2 V - ‘O ENGEL, KOMMT!’ | © FABER MUSIC

Jonathan Harvey Selected forthcoming performances

Jonathan Harvey

‘Quartet No. 3 seems to examine the same concepts as Pesson and Hayden, but with comparatively elegant concision. From the gossamer inhalations and exhalations at the start, to the cello at the centre drawing all the instruments on to a single note, to the multi-layered swoops at the climax, Quatuor Diotima made it sound vibrant and often very beautiful.’

The Riot 15.4.15, The Forge Camden: Rarescale

String Trio 25.4.15, All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, Kansas City, MO, USA: newEar Ensemble

Bhakti / Death of Light, Light of Death / ff/ Nataraja / Three Sketches / Tombeau de Messiaen 9.5.15, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Students of the Royal Northern College of Music

Ashes Dance Back (Polish premiere) 21.5.15, Naradowe Forum Muzyki, Wrocław, Poland: Wrocław Philharmonic Choir/cond. Agnieszka Franków-Zelazny

Tranquil Abiding 21-23.5.15, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City, USA: New York Philharmonic/Susanna Mälkki

Peter Sculthorpe Selected forthcoming performances Small Town 18.4.15, Canning River Foreshore, Fremantle, WA, Australia: Freemantle Symphony Orchestra/Christopher van Tuinen (Maltese premiere) 25.4.15, Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, Malta: Malta Philharmonic Orchestra/Brian Schembri 30.4.15, Scotch College, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Scotch College/John Ferguson

Island Songs (Australian premiere) 9.5.15, Canberra International Music Festival, Fitters’ Workshop, Canberra, ACT, Australia: Amy Dickson/ Ensemble Offspring

Sun Music III 13.6.15, Air Force Museum of New Zealand, Christchurch, New Zealand: Ariana Tikao/Christchurch Symphony Orchestra/Benjamin Northey

– material which derives from an improvisation Harvey recorded with the cellist Francis-Marie Uitti on their ‘Imaginings’ recording.

The Guardian (Erica Jeal), 15 December 2014

‘The Diotimas’ eloquent performance suggested that Harvey’s visionary music should escape the slump in profile that tends to follow a composer’s death.’

Music as a form of breathing… A recurring preoccupation for Jonathan Harvey, breathing (and, tied to this, the idea of inspiration) finds numerous varied manifestations throughout his output, from electronic representations, as in the first act of his 1991 opera Inquest of Love, to purely instrumental ones, like his masterful Tranquil Abiding for chamber orchestra (1998). The latter receives its US premiere in three performances by the New York Philharmonic under Susanna Mälkki in May. This 14-minute work takes its name from a Buddhist term describing a state of single-pointed concentration and its backbone is made up of a simple oscillation between an ‘inhalation’ on an upper note and an ‘exhalation’ on a lower one. Overlaid with melodic fragments of increasing ornateness, this simple unifying device creates an organic and coherent trajectory through the work’s wave-like form and towards its limpid conclusion, where a gentle smattering of exotic percussion and string pizzicati (the later withheld until this point for maximum effect) bring the music to a rest. ‘Music as a form of breathing, or surging, as of a calm ocean, a static but animated continuum of feeling… His agitato cacophony is as deft as his languorous intensity.’ The Times (Paul Driver), 5 February 2012

Third Quartet championed in London and New York Breathing also features prominently in Harvey’s Third Quartet (1995) which has recently enjoyed performances by Quatour Diotima at London’s Spitalfields Winter Festival and the Mozartsall of the Wiener Konzerthaus. Here, the members of the quartet are asked to synchronise their breathing patterns with the music. The half-heard sonority that results is typical of this 16-minute work, in which sinewy, aerated strands of material are set against one another as if in a kaleidoscope – a treatment which looks forward to the electronic procedures of the Fourth Quartet (2003). Splintered, luminescent shards of sound rub shoulders with vital col legno battuto dance rhythms. Later, the music gravitates towards an octave G that is constantly inflected with microtones PHOTOS: (LEFT) JONATHAN HARVEY © MAURICE FOXALL

The Times (Geoff Brown), 17 December 2014

Peter Sculthorpe Chamber Music Recordings Surveys of the complete piano works by TamaraAnna Cislowska and the complete String Quartets with Didjeridu from the Del Sol Quartet and Stephen Kent, have both left critics awestruck at the composer’s rich artistic vision. The piano album contains almost 160 minutes of music, and spans 66 years of Sculthorpe’s piano output, from Falling Leaves (1945) to Riverina (2011) whilst the latter contains a number of provocative late works which essay a deeply emotional landscape, traversing fraught subjects of genocide and global warming to more optimistic ones of hope and tender mercy. ‘Richly expressive quartets that reflect the composer’s profound attachment to nature and keen social conscience... the tonal beauty of the four string instruments, anchored by the otherworldly burr of the didgeridoo, create a hypnotic sound world well worth exploring.’ The New York Times (Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim), 26 November 2014 (String Quartets with Didjeridu)

‘The music, essentially melodic with straightforward forms and procedures, has a simplicity similar to that of John Tavener’s music, but also a refreshing earthiness.’ BBC Music Magazine (Anthony Burton), January 2015 (String Quartets with Didjeridu)

‘Sculthorpe’s musical voice and sense of his own land and its cultures is always beguilingly to the fore... The three semi-improvised pieces with tape, Landscape and Koto Music I & II are particularly beautiful... Djilile is mesmerising... Not that Sculthorpe’s music is all dreamy evocation. Pieces such as Mountains and Simori are forceful, violent even.’ BBC Music Magazine (Christopher Dingle) December 2014 (Complete Piano Works)

TUNING IN

Oliver Knussen Professorship for ‘one of the greatest polymaths of our time’ The Royal Academy of Music has announced the appointment of Knussen as its inaugural Richard Rodney Bennett Professor of Music. As well as working with the Academy’s composition students he will regularly rehearse and conduct the Manson Ensemble, the Academy’s specialist new music group. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, the Academy’s Principal, said: ‘Knussen is one of the greatest musical polymaths of our time as composer, conductor and teacher. He’s already shown himself as an inspiration to younger generations at the Academy and I doubt there’s anyone who can rival his knowledge of 20thcentury music! I am delighted to welcome him to our substantial roster of illustrious colleagues.’

In contrast to the through-composed Where the Wild Things Are (Knussen’s other Sendak opera), here clearly defined arias and ensembles allow the intricacies of plot and character to be delineated with clarity and precision. The vocal writing for each of the fairy-tale line-up of roles is sharply defined and contrasted – with each given music dominated by a particular musical interval.

Songs without Voices 25.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, Suffolk UK: London Sinfonietta/George Benjamin

A highlight of this year’s Musica Nova Helsinki festival was a performance of Knussen’s Music for a Puppet Court (1983) by the Tapiola Sinfonietta under Ryan Wigglesworth. Dedicated to Maxwell Davies, whose own engagement with Medieval and Tudor music was so influential to Knussen’s generation, the 10-minute work is scored for antiphonically divided chamber orchestra and is bookended by two elegant, jewel-like arrangements of sixteenth-century puzzle canons attributed to John Lloyd. In between, two short variation movements see Knussen exploring the same material in his own inimitable voice.

Faber Music is pleased to announce the long-awaited publication of Higglety Pigglety Pop!, the second, and darker, of Knussen’s two extraordinary fantasy operas created in collaboration with the acclaimed author Maurice Sendak. Composed between 1984-5 but finding its final form, after a number of substantial revisions, in 1999, the opera – subtitled ‘There Must be More to Life’ – is the story of a well-fed Sealyham terrier, Jennie, who escapes boredom to become prima donna of the Mother Goose World Theatre.

PHOTO: OLIVER KNUSSEN © HANA ZUSHI-RHODES, ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC

7.6.15, Green Door Gourmet, Nashville, TN, USA: Kelly Corcoran/ INTERSECTION

13.6.15, Spitalfields Summer Festival, Bishopsgate Institute, London, UK: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

Musica Nova Helsinki Focus

Publication of Higglety Pigglety Pop!

Hums and Songs of Winnie the Pooh

Cantata

In January Knussen conducted the Manson Ensemble in a programme featuring his own Two Organa alongside music by Rodney Bennett, Cashian, Maxwell Davies and RAM student Ryan Latimer.

A selection of Knussen’s elegiacal chamber pieces featured in the festival’s late-night concerts; Ryan Wigglesworth played the Prayer Bell Sketch whilst members of the Finnish Radio Symphony performed Secret Psalm, Autumnal and Ophelia’s Last Dance.

Oliver Knussen Selected forthcoming performances

Two Organa 26.7.15, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox, MA, USA: Stefan Asbury

Violin Concerto 24.9.15, Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan: Leila Josefowicz/Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen

Flourish with Fireworks 29.9.15, Suntory Hall, Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/ Oliver Knussen

Brimming with invention, this hour-long work culminates in a witty opera-within-an-opera, complete with a lopsided – and slightly screwy – overture after Mozart, absurdly abrupt changes of tone and gear, and numerous madcap false endings. The score, priced at £95, is available from the Faber Music Store (ISBN 0-571-52957-7)

Meticulous Craftsmanship... A number of Knussen’s handwritten manuscripts are available to view on the Faber Online Score Library.

22-23.10.15, Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway: Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner

Requiem Songs for Sue 25.10.15, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Claire Booth/Britten Sinfonia/ Oliver Knussen

Symphony No 2 28.10.15, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Britten Sinfonia/Oliver Knussen

The Way to Castle Yonder 17.12.15, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: Edward Gardner/BBC Symphony Orchestra

Carl Vine Selected forthcoming performances Inner World 12.4.15, Música Viva Festival, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia: Nicolas Altstaedt

Carl Vine Publication of The Tree of Man Lyrical, direct and exhibiting a masterful understanding of vocal writing, Carl Vine’s secular cantata for soprano and strings, The Tree of Man, is a gift to audience and musicians alike. The 11-minute work, written in 2012 for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and soprano Daniele de Niese, is based on a passage from a novel of the same name by the Nobel Prize-winning author Patrick White. Vine knew White personally (having written music for several of his stage plays in the 1980s) and his setting perfectly complements the simplicity and sincerity of the prose. The music moves in an arc from its quietly insistent beginnings and rhapsodic central section to a haunting conclusion, where the brooding opening returns before evaporating into the air... ‘Vine finds the music in White’s simple but glowing sentences. The accompaniment is delicate, like a watercolour wash, and the vocal part is a deft line drawing.’ Sydney Morning Herald (Harriet Cunningham), 11 June 2012

‘Unravelling the mysteries of the Australian landscape in a slow, long vocal line showcasing de Niese’s luscious middle register...’ Limelight (Melissa Lesnie), 14 June 2012

The score, priced at £10.99, is available from the Faber Music Store (ISBN 0-571-52253-X)

Our Sons Vine returned to the medium of soprano and strings in another commission from the ACO; Our Sons premiered by soprano Taryn Fiebig as part of the orchestra’s Reflections On Gallipoli national concert tour in March. The new work includes a setting of the moving words of Turkish General Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a tribute to fallen Anzac soldiers, inscribed on the memorial stone at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli.

Concerto for Orchestra: A work ‘bristling with contrast and energy’ The premiere of Vine’s Concerto for Orchestra by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in October was received to critical acclaim. Its composer describes the way the work (like his recent Piano Trio The Village) ‘evolves organically through a chain of episodes to create a web of melodies and harmonies that are related but not identical. This network of ideas is tied together by strong lateral bonds but remains fluid and flexible, creating a series of fleeting glimpses – what Prokofiev called visions fugitives – abstract patterns glimpsed in the half-light or imagined behind clouds.’ ‘A kaleidoscopic showpiece for orchestra entirely worthy of its name. The piece bristles with contrast and energy. Within the first few minutes we journey from a mellifluous woodwind pastorale to a fanfare for full brass choir, then to a driving passage for timpani and drums alone. Within Vine’s deft and unpretentious musical language one may detect hints of minimalism, jazz, a recurrent lyricism and the direct expressiveness of music for film. It is very much a summation and distillation of the kinds of music we live with every day, reimagined and revitalised for the concert hall.’ The Australian (Paul Hopwood), 14 October 2014

Nicholas Maw Concert Suite from Sophie’s Choice Faber is pleased to announce the publication of the Concert Suite from Sophie’s Choice, Maw’s 2002 opera which Sir Simon Rattle heralded as ‘an instant classic, a piece that will immediately touch and move people’. Mostly formed out of the opera’s orchestral interludes, the 22-minute suite’s musical elements are not always in the same order as they appear in the opera – but rather are arranged in a way which gives a satisfactory form over this much shorter timespan. Like Alban Berg’s Lulu Suite, Maw’s contains one (optional) vocal movement for soprano – here Sophie’s final aria where, writing in a letter to her lover, she communicates her terrible despair about her past in Auschwitz. The score, priced at £24.99, is available from the Faber Music Store (ISBN 0-571-52238-6)

TUNING IN

Colin Matthews

Colin Matthews Selected forthcoming performances

Sibelius Song Orchestrations The music of Finland’s great symphonist has long exerted a strong influence on Matthews, be it in the galloping rhythms of Night Rides, his captivating 2011 commission from the London Sinfonietta, or in the celebrated recent orchestral work Traces Remain which incorporates material from Sibelius’s lost Eighth Symphony. Renowned for his orchestrations of Debussy, Fauré and Mahler, Matthews has now turned his hand to five Sibelius songs. Creating a 12-minute sequence, the songs (taken from collections from across Sibelius’s output) will be premiered in April by the renowned Sibelius interpreter soprano Soile Isokoski with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu.

A Fifth String Quartet Crowning Matthews’s substantial body of chamber music are his string quartets, a remarkably rich body of pieces that span 35 years of composition. Particularly striking is the Fourth Quartet, from 2012, which won a British Composer Award and was described as ‘superbly inventive’ by The Sunday Times’s Paul Driver. A deeply personal seven-movement work, the Quartet flitters through shadowy, half-remembered dances (habanera, barcarolle and musette) before ending, defiant and unresolved, on a stark unison. Matthews is currently writing a Fifth Quartet and it will be fascinating to see what form his next foray into the medium will take. He describes it as a single movement of around 12 minutes which is ‘more restrained and detached than its predecessors, initially concentrating on the silence between the notes as much as on the notes themselves.’ The London performance will take place at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in July, with a London premiere by the Apollon Musagete Quartet scheduled for later that summer.

Plaudits for Latest Hallé Portrait Disc A new all-Matthews recording from the Hallé Orchestra – the latest document of their remarkably close and long-lasting relationship with his music – was released in October, immediately impressing critics. Conducted by Nicholas Collon, the CD features Matthews’s Wordsworth-inspired choral work Crossing the Alps alongside two large-scale works for chorus, soloists and orchestra – No Man’s Land (to a text by Christopher Reid) and Aftertones, his settings of poems by war-poet Edmund Blunden. With soloists Ian Bostridge and Roderick Williams on sensational form, and sensitive, assured performances from the Hallé Choir and Orchestra, Matthews’s rich and highly individual works could not wish for better advocacy.

PHOTO: COLIN MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL

Five Sibelius Songs (World premiere) 15-16.4.15, Concert Hall, Music Centre, Helsinki, Finland: Soile Isokoski/Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu

“Nicht zu schnell” from Mahler’s Piano Quartet 17.4.15, Auditorio de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain: Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife/ Victor Pablo Pérez

‘[In No Man’s Land] Matthews responds [to Reid’s texts] with music of great sensitivity as well as, at certain moments, a kind of musical collage, compounded of occasional echoes of the time, evoked by recordings of period songs and marches… Overall the mood [of Aftertones] is ashen, moonlit, haunted… After a pivotal, but tender, interlude for harp and strings, Matthews adds his own gloss to the third and last poem… by breaking away from the vision of Armageddon at its end to return to the haunting beauty, and balm of a passage, now set almost like a hymn… Crossing the Alps reaches a fine climax… Well worth hearing for Matthews’s imaginative response to his chosen texts.’

Grand Barcarolle 13.5.15, Ulster Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland: Ulster Orchestra/ Rafael Payare

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (US premiere) 6.6.15, S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, Seattle, USA: Seattle Symphony Orchestra/Stilian Kirov

String Quartet No.5 (world premiere) 19.7.15, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, USA: Players from the Tanglewood Music Centre

International Record Review (Piers Burton-Page), February 2015

‘Period songs and gramophone honky-tonk reminiscences are spun into a coherent, poignant work. Aftertones makes an ideal companion piece, with the short Crossing the Alps, sung by the excellent Hallé Youth Choir, the perfect bridge.’ The Guardian (Fiona Maddocks), 9 November 2014

‘[No Man’s Land is] an unlikely yet thoughtprovoking piece.’ Gramophone (Richard Whitehouse), January 2015

‘[In Aftertones,] Matthews conveys the poetry’s underlying menace, overlaying the chorus’s music with diaphanous string harmonics like acrid vapour, followed by a dance of death movement. The final movement stirs memories of Britten with the music’s sense of twilight wonder… Crossing the Alps seems to blend Holst’s mysticism with Kodály’s more exotic and wonderstruck harmonic style. Yet most affecting of all is No Man’s Land, a surreal cantata featuring a WWI Sergeant and his Captain now dead in no man’s land, yet each still resonant with memories. These are made all the more vivid by a honky-tonk piano and old 78 recordings woven into the orchestral fabric to haunting effect.’ BBC Music Magazine (Daniel Jaffé), January 2015

Colin Matthews celebrates his 70th Birthday in 2016. If you are interested in marking this occasion and would like to know more, please contact the Faber Promotion Department.

Thomas Adès Selected forthcoming performances

Thomas Adès

Dances from Powder Her Face 9-10.4.15, Auditorium, Maison de la Radio, Paris, France: Orchestre National de France/David Robertson

Piano Quintet 9.4.15, Música Viva Festival, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, NSW: Doric String Quartet/ Aleksandar Madzar 23.4.15, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Croatian: Croatian String Quartet/ Marko Otmačić/Filip Fak

Violin Concerto 12-13.4.15, Grosses Haus, Karlsruhe: Augustin Hadelich/Badisches Staatstheater/Justin Brown

The Four Quarters 12.4.15, Música Viva Festival Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia; 18.5.15, Kulturund Kongresszentrum Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Germany; 27.5.15, Stricker Auditorium, Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv, Israel; 26.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk,UK: Doric String Quartet

Three Studies from Couperin 23-28.4.15, Symphony Hall, Boston, MA USA: Boston Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Haitink 8.5.15, Ulster Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland: Ulster Orchestra/ Jamie Phillips 16.5.15, Ordway Concert Hall, Saint Paul, MN, USA: The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra/ Thomas Zehetmair

Mazurkas 23.4.15, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Croatia: Daan Vandewalle 28.5.15, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge: Richard Uttley

Asyla (Croatian premiere) 23.4.15, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Croatia: Croatian Radiotelevison Orchestra/ Johannes Kalitzke 16.3.16: Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: London Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès

Arcadiana 25.4.15, Riverside Recital Hall, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA: Calder Quartet 30.4.15, St Michael, Cologne; 9.5.15, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 3.7.15, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Bantry, Ireland: Signum Quartet

Powder Her Face (Polish premiere)

Adès to receive the 2015 Léonie Sonning Music Prize This October Adès will join the distinguished company of Kurtág, Ligeti, Messiaen and Stravinsky as a recipient of the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize. Adès will conduct the prize-giving concert which features the Danish National Concert Choir and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in Asyla, America: A Prophecy and the Danish premiere of Totentanz. The concert marks the conclusion of a mini-festival in Copenhagen in which Adès performs alongside both the Danish String Quartet and the Athelas Sinfonietta conducted by Pierre-André Valade.

German Premiere of Totentanz After critically-acclaimed performances in London, Budapest, Warsaw and New York, Adès’s most recent work, Totentanz, receives its German premiere this May by the Meininger Hofkapelle under Philippe Bach. Bringing together baritone and mezzo-soprano soloists with a (very) large orchestra, this is Adès’s longest composition for the concert hall to date. Totentanz is based on a thirty-metre-long hanging of painted cloth made in 1463 for the church of St Mary in Lübeck. Following the lead of the frieze (and setting its original German text), the work unfolds as a dialogue between a charismatic and gleefully macabre Grim Reaper (baritone) and the procession of his many victims (mezzo) who we meet in strictly descending order of importance, from Pope and Cardinal to Maiden and Child. Adès paints each character vividly; clangourous anvils and military sidedrum herald the Knight whilst rustic, off-kilter horn writing signal the Peasant. ‘The dance of death is not an optional dance,’ observes Adès, ‘it’s the one we all have to join in. It’s supposed to be at the same time terrifying, levelling and also funny – it’s absurd… the thing that makes it comic is the total powerlessness of everybody, no matter who they are’.

9-19.5.15, Polish National Opera, Warsaw, Poland: Orkiestra Teatru Wielkiego/Opery Narodowej/ Alejo Pérez

PHOTO: THOMAS ADÈS © BRIAN VOCE

Although the work begins with an orderly alternation of voices, Death has very little time for the middle classes, and soon vocal lines start piling up as he interrupts them, the music accelerating towards an earth-shattering climax where the full orchestra is unleashed in aleatoric outburst reminiscent of Witold Lutosławski, the work’s dedicatee. Adès joins a long line of composers who have tackled the subject of the Totentanz (including Berlioz, Liszt, Mussorgsky and Schubert) and his music constantly alludes to that tradition. The dance is set in motion by a piercing, jagged rendering of the Dies Irae in shrill winds whilst percussion is prominent throughout, with eight players utilising all manner of whistles, ratchets and animal bones, as well as a vast Taiko drum, to powerful effect. ‘Until its unnervingly tonal ending, when the world’s vanities seem to slither into an eerie Mahlerian lullaby, Adès’s score is mostly brutal, exploiting screeching high sonorities or grunting low ones, with a crippled, lurching momentum. That makes it sound unpleasant. Yet I found it thrilling: one of his best.’ The Times (Richard Morrison), 19 July 2013

‘Adès, with unfaltering dramatic instinct, has seized on the piece’s dark playfulness… What is most striking is how frightening the music is, the entire orchestra in uproar, fighting for its life.’ The Observer (Kate Kellaway), 21 July 2013

Whilst Totentanz’s vast scale, compelling drama and totally individual sound world all made a powerful impact at its 2013 BBC Proms premiere (described by The Telegraph as a ‘cultural event of the first magnitude’), it was the work’s intimate closing passages, where death meets a new-born child, which ultimately made the strongest impression on audiences. ‘The baby is actually everybody,’ notes Adès, who has created a finale of Mahlerian poignancy which soars gracefully aloft before being wrenched back to the depths of the orchestra.

TUNING IN

Tom Coult International Stages

Thomas Adès Selected forthcoming performances (cont.)

Whilst anticipation grows for the world premiere of Adès’s next opera, The Exterminating Angel, at the 2016 Salzburg Festival, both The Tempest and Powder Her Face continue to travel the world.

Life Story

Soon the Vienna State Opera will become the ninth house to stage The Tempest, with five performances of Robert Lepage’s award-winning production in June. Lepage’s account includes choreography by none other than Crystal Pite, whose remarkable version of Polaris features in our Highlights section.

Totentanz

Meanwhile, Powder Her Face receives its Polish premiere in May at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw. Remarkably, all five performances (in a new production by director Mariusz Treli´nski) are already sold out. A full score of Powder her Face will be published this Summer.

New CD Releases Few contemporary string quartets can boast four commercial recordings but with the release of two recordings from the Signum and Calder Quartets Adès’s Arcadiana becomes one of them. The Calder Quartet disc also features the Piano Quintet (with Adès on piano) and the first recording of his second string quartet The Four Quarters. Nearly twenty years separate Adès’s quartets. ‘All I have been able to discover over this time,’ muses Adès, ‘is that music only gets more and more mysterious’. ‘These three works are not only in classic genres but themselves becoming classics, with Arcadiana as close as any modern quartet to joining the repertory.’ Paul Griffiths (notes to Calder Quartet release)

When one adds to these new releases the three recordings of the Violin Concerto and two recordings of the Chamber Symphony, one can only conclude that many of Adès’s works are well on the way to achieving that rare thing of entering the standard repertoire.

19.5.15, Música Viva Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, Australia: Mary Carewe/ Philip Mayers

(German premiere) 20.5.15, Das Meininger Theater, Meiningen, Germany: Carolina Krogius/Dae-Hee Shin/Meininger Hofkapelle/Philippe Bach

Living Toys

Two High Profile Premieres My Curves are not Mad, a 14-minute work for string ensemble inspired by the late cut-outs of Henri Matisse, was premiered by Britten Sinfonia at London’s Milton Court in March, with additional performances in Norwich and Saffron Walden. Displaying Coult’s proclivity for clear incisive gestures and rich, luminescent harmonies, it was inspired by the following passage from Henri Matisse’s ‘Jazz’: ‘...In determining the vertical direction, the plumb line along with its opposite, the horizontal, forms the compass of the draftsman... Around this fictive line “the arabesque” evolves... The vertical is in my spirit. It helps me to define precisely the direction of lines, and in quick sketches I never indicate a curve... without being aware of its relationship to the vertical. My curves are not mad.’ This is the first of two high profile commissions for Coult this year, the other being Beautiful Caged Thing, a song cycle, for Claire Booth and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by George Benjamin which will be premiered at this summer’s Aldeburgh Festival. Reviews of both works will feature in the next edition of Fortissimo.

Sparking and Slipping A dazzling 11-minute showpiece for violin and the rather Boulezian accompagnato group of piano, harp and (mostly tuned) percussion, Sparking & Slipping was premiered by its dedicatee, violinist Sarah Hill, in September. It was then revived a month later at the Austrian Cultural Institute’s Soundings Festival by players including the Fidelio Trio’s Mary Dullea and Darragh Morgan. ‘I wanted to capture some of the spirit (though not the sound) of baroque music,’ Coult remarks. ‘I like the whiteknuckle virtuosity of a lot of Vivaldi, and the idea of an ensemble that supports and provides a backdrop to the pyrotechnics of the soloist.’ Its outer sections are based around an obsessive, dance-like theme, while the lyrical heart sees the violin sculpt an extended, rhapsodic line.

SCORE EXTRACT: ‘THE FOUR QUARTERS’ © FABER MUSIC | PHOTO: TOM COULT © SARAH HILL

21.5.15, National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, Katowice, Poland: London Sinfonietta/Brad Lubman

Lieux retrouvés 4.6.15, Adelaide Town Hall, Adelaide; 8.6.15, Perth Concert Hall, Perth, Australia: Steven Isserlis/Connie Shih (Part of an Australian tour of 9 performances)

Court Studies from The Tempest 5.6.15, Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, UK: Nash Ensemble

Concerto Conciso 11.6.15, Festival Mito, Milan, Italy: Luca Ieracitano/Ensemble Musicadesso/Paolo Casiraghi

The Tempest 14-27.6.15, Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna, Austria: Vienna State Opera/cond. Thomas Adès/ dir Robert Lepage

Traced Overhead / Arcadiana / Four Quarters, The / Piano Quintet 4.10.15, Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium, Copenhagen: Danish String Quartet/Thomas Adès

Asyla / America / Totentanz 8.10.15, Copenhagen: Christianne Stotijn/Mark Stone/Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès

Tevot / Polaris / Brahms 9.3.16, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: London Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès

Tom Coult Selected forthcoming performances Beautiful Caged Thing 13.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Claire Booth/Mahler Chamber Orchestra/George Benjamin

Benjamin Britten Selected forthcoming performances

Benjamin Britten

Carl Davis

Curlew River

Last Train to Tomorrow

Last Autumn, the Barbican’s 5-star production of Curlew River (originally staged in London as part of the Britten centenary) toured the USA to critical acclaim. Exploring themes of community, suffering and redemption through the unforgettable figure of the Madwoman and the loss of her child, the opera was memorably directed by the multimedia director and video artist Netia Jones (whose previous projects include Knussen’s two Fantasy Operas). It featured an outstanding British cast led by Ian Bostridge (the Madwoman) alongside Neal Davies and Mark Stone with Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices. Britten and William Plomer’s 70-minute Church Parable is a unique and extraordinary work – a piece shot through with the strange, exotic sounds of bells, un-tuned drums and organ.

November saw the long-awaited London premiere of Last Train to Tomorrow, Davis’s 45-minute ‘dramatic narrative’ for children’s choir, actors and orchestra. Composed in 2011, this powerful work tells the story of the Kindertransport – when tens of thousands of unaccompanied Jewish children set out from Prague, Vienna and Berlin on long journeys towards refuge in Britain. It’s a work that lends itself to a variety of presentations and here, in a semistaged account, the Finchley Children’s Music Group took on the speaking roles too. Once a turning point for trains, London’s Roundhouse came into its own as the perfect venue for this performance, which was given added poignancy by falling on the annual commemoration of Kristallnacht.

Curlew River is unique, not only in opera but in theatrical narrative. It fuses the form and meaning of Medieval miracle play with a powerful dose of the uncanny from the far more modern English ghost story tradition… The inventive music is full of the explicit and subtle use of devices from gagaku music… As gripping as anything from Peter Grimes… Britten at his best… [Jones] sees inside to the pure core of the piece, and has brought out something marvellous.’

‘plain-speaking simplicity and integrity’

Young Apollo 2.4.15, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London UK; 3.4.15, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Aldeburgh Strings/Lorenzo Soules/ Markus Däunert 18.4.15, Manchester Cathedral, Manchester, UK: Manchester Camerata/Gábor Takács-Nagy/ Dejan Lazic 27-29.11.15, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel/Pianist TBA

String Quartet No.3 11.4.15, Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden: Belcea Quartet 29.5.15, Hay-on-Wye, Wales; 31.5.15, Aachen, NordrheinWestfalen, Germany: Elias String Quartet

Children’s Crusade 1.5.15, NDR Grosser Sendesaal, Hannover, Germany: Madchenchor Hannover

Phaedra 21.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Christine Rice/ Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen

Death In Venice 21.6-10.7.15, Wormsley Park, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK: Garsington Opera/dir. Paul Curran/ cond. Steuart Bedford

Carl Davis Selected forthcoming performances One Week / The General 24.4.15, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Philharmonia Orchestra/Carl Davis

Behind the Screen 1.5.15, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Carl Davis

Alice in Wonderland 3-6.6.15, Mountain Creek State High School, QLD, Australia: Mountain Creek State High School students/ Jessica Stansibie

The Wind (French premiere) 25.6.15, La Filature, Scène nationale, Mulhouse, Alsace, France: Orchestre symphonique de Mulhouse/Dirk Brossé

Ben-Hur (Czech premiere) 16.7.15, Smetana Hall, Obecní dum, Prague, Czech Republic: Czech National Symphony Orchestra/Carl Davis

The General 1.11.15, Luzerner Theater, Lucerne, Switzerland: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Boris Schäfer

The New York Classical Review (George Grella), 31 October 2014

‘Britten is attempting something of extraordinary originality here – a synthesis of the different musical and theatrical worlds of Japanese Noh drama and Medieval church opera. The result is not a pastiche of the clichés of orientalist and plainchant modes, but a fiercely tense and emotionally resonant parable of grief and loss, in which the wandering Madwoman is finally granted spiritual peace.’ The Telegraph (Rupert Christiansen )15 November 2013 (Review of London performances)

PHOTOS: (LEFT) BENJAMIN BRITTEN (RIGHT) CARL DAVIS © RICHARD CANON

‘The songs themselves, that reflect, in Hiawyn Oram’s words, early childhood bliss, the violence of Kristallnacht – and that take us through the various stages of the journey – are interspersed with spoken narrative, anecdote and solos. And the strings and percussion of the City of London Sinfonia were joined by piano duet, delineating the delicately crafted orchestral writing in an austere black and white... the plain-speaking simplicity and integrity of Davis’ writing – for the most part in a folksy-Broadway mode – won me over.’ The Times (Hilary Finch), 12 November 2014,

Looking Ahead... Carl Davis celebrates his 80th Birthday in 2016. If you are interested in marking this occasion and would like to find out more, please contact the Promotion Department.

TUNING IN

Matthew Hindson

John Woolrich

Epic Machiavelli setting premieres in Sydney Opera House

Dum Spiro, Spero 9.6.15, Spitalfields Summer Festival,Geffrye Museum, London, UK: Musicians from the Royal Academy of Music

Setting texts from Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, Matthew Hindson’s It is better to be feared than loved premiered to a rousing reception in Sydney Opera House on 8 and 9 October last year. Brett Weymark conducted the 400-strong Sydney Philharmonia Festival Chorus and the Sydney Youth Orchestra in this exuberant 13-minute work: ‘There was something almost Stalinist about the brazen sounds that Hindson conjured for the start of the work, but there was a lot of fun too – particularly in the cheeky section where the choir sang “I’m not interested in preserving the status quo”. Beautifully scored, with the energy and dazzle of early Adams, Hindson deployed harp, jazzy drums, orchestral piano and an array of percussion in a syncopated frenzy that had echoes of Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms… If I said that the work had the crazy ambition of Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony, I say that as a Brian true believer.’ Limelight Magazine (Clive Paget), 10 October 2014

Australian String Quartet to premiere String Quartet No 3 ‘Ngeringa’ Hindson’s recently completed String Quartet No 3. is a commission from Ngeringa Arts and will mark the opening of the stunning new Ngeringa Arts Cultural Centre, near Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills. Hindson takes philanthropist and founder of the centre Ulrike Klein’s vision as its inspiration. The Australian String Quartet unveil the 16-minute work at Ngeringa on 30 August before touring it throughout Australia during September.

‘Kalkadungu’ at Milan World Expo ‘Perhaps the most compelling few minutes of indigenous-inspired fast music to come from any white Australian’. So wrote the Sydney Morning Herald of Kalkadungu, a 20-minute piece for didjeridu, voice, electric guitar and orchestra by Hindson and William Barton. It caused a media storm at its premiere in 2008, in the wake of national debates about indigenous land rights. It has since gone on to be heard outside Australia – in Los Angeles, New York and Colorado and was released on ABC Classics. Now it’s coming to Europe: Barton will join the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and Daniel Smith for a much-anticipated performance at the Milan World Expo on 23 July.

Visible Weapon Visible Weapon is a commission for the VineyGrinberg Piano Duo, launched by them in Sydney on 28 March. The 10-minute work is scored for two pianos and electronics.

PHOTO: JOHN WOOLRICH © MAURICE FOXALL

John Woolrich Selected forthcoming performances

Three Fantasias for six viols 15.5.15, Vale of Glamorgan Festival, St Augustine’s Church, Penarth, Wales: Fretwork

Ulysses Awakes 9.7.15, Hospital of St Cross, Winchester; 19.8.15, North Norfolk Festival, St Mary’s Church, South Creake, UK: Simon RowlandJones/12 ensemble

‘A beautiful, dark-hued meditation...’ In December Britten Sinfonia celebrated Woolrich’s 60th year with portrait concerts in London and Cambridge. The Violin Concerto, which received its London premiere with soloist Thomas Gould impressed the Guardian’s Andrew Clements who described it as ‘one of his most substatial recent works’. ‘It was a typically self-effacing portrait, and a truthful one; some of Woolrich’s most rewarding and revealing works have refracted his own musical personality through those of his historical predecessors… Ulysses Awakes [is] part paraphrase, part fantasy for viola and strings from the first act of Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses – a beautiful, dark-hued meditation, constantly haunted by shadows of the original vocal lines. Thomas Gould was the soloist in the Violin Concerto [and] underlined the satisfying unity of the 20-minute work with its clear, unswerving trajectory and its moments of genuinely poetic reflection.’ The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 21 November 2014

The Voices Woolrich has composed a 20-minute song cycle for the wonderful young bass Matthew Rose and the Angell Trio – the same forces who gave the premiere of Martin Suckling’s radiant Songs from a Bright September last year. Nine songs and two instrumental interludes make up this setting of Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Die Stimmen’ in an English version compiled by the composer himself. Each is sung by someone suffering pain and injustice – from the Idiot and the Beggar to the Suicide and the Widow. The protagonists, pushed to the edge of society are potentially unheard and sing their songs so as not to be forgotten. Awkward, knotty and uncompromisingly honest, this substantial work premiered at Aldeburgh in March and toured to venues including Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum and London’s Royal Opera House.

Matthew Hindson Selected forthcoming performances Comin’ Right Atcha 12.4.15, Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY, USA: Helix! and Friends/ Kynan Johns 3.5.15, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, UK: St Andrews New Music Ensemble/Bede Williams

Boom-Box 6 & 7.5.15, Llewellyn Hall, Canberra, ACT, Australia: Canberra SO/ Nicholas Milton

Kalkadungu (co-composed by William Barton & Matthew Hindson) (Italian premiere) 23.7.15, World Expo, Milan, Italy: William Barton/Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi/ Daniel Smith

String Quartet No 3: Ngeringa (world premiere) 30.8.15, Ngeringa Arts Culture Centre, Mount Barker, SA; 1.9.15, Brisbane, QLD; 2.9.15, Sydney, NSW; 3.9.15, Melbourne, VIC; 7.9.15, Adelaide, SA; 8.9.15, Perth, WA, Australia: Australian String Quartet

David Matthews Selected forthcoming performances

David Matthews

‘[The Third Quartet is] an impressive work, that amply justifies the plaudits it has received and which can rank among the finest string quartets (British or otherwise) from the period.’ International Record Review (Richard Whitehouse), February 2015

Symphony No.8 (world premiere)

Lichfield Residency

17.4.15, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/HK Gruber

(uk premiere)

Matthews is Composer in Residence at this year’s Lichfield Festival which will include the world premiere of his Toward Sunrise by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Lahav Shani. The Choir of Lichfield Cathedral sing Matthews’s setting of Psalm 23 and young artists will perform selected chamber works. The Tenth String Quartet – an evocative eleven minute work in two movements inspired by Australian birdsong – will be performed by the Sacconi Quartet.

13.5.15, Wilton’s Music Hall, London, UK: Peter Sheppard Skaerved

Chopin Arrangements - ‘A revelation’

Adonis

In December the Scottish Ensemble toured Matthews’s new Chopin Nocturne arrangements for string ensemble: Op.37 No.2, with its richly harmonic middle section and Op.55 No.1, with its strikingly operatic opening melody.

Piano Trio No 2 30.4.15, Kings Place, London, UK: Leonore Piano Trio

Symphony No 7 9.5.15, St Barnabas Church, Ealing, London, UK: Ealing Symphony Orchestra/John Gibbons

Fifteen Preludes

14.5.15, Vale of Glamorgan Festival, Dyffryn House, Dyffryn, Wales: Sara Trickey/Robin Green

One Foot in Eden (Irish premiere) 3.7.15, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, St Brendan’s Church, Bantry, Ireland: James Gilchrist/Anna Tilbrook/Vanbrugh Quartet

Toward Sunrise (world premiere) 8.7.15, Lichfield Festival, Lichfield Cathedral, Lichfield, Staffordshire, UK: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Lahav Shani

String Quartet No 10 9.7.15, Lichfield Festival, St Michael’s Church, Lichfield, Staffordshire, UK: Sacconi Quartet

Three Studies 31.8.15, Presteigne Festival, St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne, Wales: Fenella Humphreys

Piano Trio No.3 1.10.15, Kings Place, London: Leonore Piano Trio

Sonatina (world premiere) 17.10.15, Kings Place, London, UK: Krysia Osostowicz/Daniel Tong

An Eighth Symphony Matthews’s latest symphony will be premiered in Manchester on 17 April by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by its dedicatee, HK Gruber. Cast in three movements, like the Sixth Symphony, this 26-minute work has at its heart a mournful Andante featuring a fugue – a form Matthews is obsessed by. Writing about his new work, the composer observes: ‘While I no longer feel the need to defend my use of tonality, since it seems obvious now that non-tonal music has not replaced it, perhaps I should say something about my light-hearted finale, with its use of melodic ideas that some might think naïve. Of course I’m aware that I’m going very much against the zeitgeist, and that most major art today is pessimistic in tone – which, given the state of the world, is hardly surprising. Yet, shouldn’t it still be possible to express feelings of delight, love of life, elation? They will inevitably be mingled with other, darker moods. But if we cannot contrast one with the other, then surely we are not fully human.’

Kreutzer Quartet Cycle Continues to Impress The latest volume in the Kreutzer Quartet’s ongoing survey of Matthews’s impressive body of String Quartets (14 to date!) focuses on the first three numbered quartets. Reviewers were quick to praise his individuality and strength of purpose, many marking the Third Quartet out for particular praise. ‘There is nothing tentative or, on the other hand, exaggeratedly flamboyant about these relatively early works… Beside certain of his European contemporaries the timbral and harmonic sound world is decidedly conservative – but unapologetically so, and rightly unapologetically so, because the music radiates a sense of purpose and goal directedness that brings its own rewards…’ Gramophone (David Fanning), February 2015

PHOTO: DAVID MATTHEWS © CLIVE BARDA

‘A revelation - supple and gently flowing, they found new perspectives on the piano originals, turning the opening of Op. 55 No. 1, for example, into a touching, almost gypsy-tinged duet.’ The Scotsman (David Kettle), 13 December 2014

‘Both pieces were meltingly beautiful in their own way, the first a happy barcarolle, with some gloriously rich divisi cello playing bursting through the song. [In Op.55] the beautiful sad melody was shared between the two solo violins, dovetailing seamlessly across the church and eventually soaring off into the heights.’ Bachtrack (David Smythe), 12 December 2014

A New Recording of the Horn Quintet There are surprisingly few pieces written for horn and string quartet, and none of them are concert staples (Mozart’s, the only well-known one, has one violin and two violas). One of the finest modern examples is by David Matthews and has recently been recorded by its commissioners the Nash Ensemble for an NMC disc celebrating their horn player Richard Watkins (for whom Matthews also wrote his Capriccio for two horns and strings). The thirteen-minute work is dedicated to Nicholas Maw and, in the first of its two movements, the soloist quotes a haunting melody from Maw’s orchestral nocturne The World in Evening. An unaccompanied cadenza transforms the melancholic mood into something brighter – a lively Molto Vivace. This is interrupted twice with shadows of the cadenza (over an ominous cello pedal) and a covered reference to the first movement before the music bursts forth one final time in a glorious long arch of melodious C Major. The recording, released in March, also features Colin Matthews’s Horn Trio Three of a Kind.

TUNING IN

Francisco Coll

Francisco Coll Selected forthcoming performances

Four Iberian Miniatures

Wesendonck Lieder Transcription

Astoundingly fresh, assured, and displaying a remarkable ear for detail, Coll’s Four Iberian Miniatures for violin and chamber orchestra premiered in Saffron Walden last November, with violinist Pekka Kuusisto alongside the Britten Sinfonia and Thomas Adès. The vibrancy of these pieces is brilliantly captured in this note by musicologist Ramón Sánchez Ochoa: ‘The first miniature opens with wild, frenzied chords whilst the frenetic movements of fandango evoke the distant echoes of heels and palms... While the violin clutches at a few ethereal pizzicati, the melodic line undoes itself through an elusive hocketting, a flickering between the eerie and the dreamlike, which ends in utter silence, met with knowing (and characteristically Hispanic) winks... The Four [Iberian] Miniatures run like lightning. After the final notes we are left perplexed and fascinated by the distance between lyricism and harshness, between the fog and the foreground, poised on that thin, flinty edge that separates the serious from the comic.’

Coll and the London Sinfonietta Already strong supporters of Coll (having commissioned the Viola Concerto Ad Marginem and having presented the UK premiere of Piedras), last year the London Sinfonietta commissioned him to write a brief solo work. The resulting Hyperlude for solo violin (the fourth in an ongoing series) was premiered at King’s Place by Jonathan Morton in March. In this short but in no way insubstantial work, cramped, high-pressure slivers of melody played on the G string are contrasted with skittering, dangerous flurries which explore severe extremes of dynamic and register in a way which typifies Coll’s work in general.

Kafka in Spain Inspired by the darkly surreal world of Franz Kafka’s imagination, Francisco Coll’s first opera Café Kafka is an explosive gem. Taking its cue from Meredith Oakes’s punchy, cleverly-assembled libretto, Coll’s dazzling score brings out every nuance of the bizarre scenario’s comedy, irony and profundity. Following the success of its premiere in 2014, when the Sunday Times’s Paul Driver praised its ‘astonishing compositional assurance’, the 45-minute opera will be revived at the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia as part of their 15/16 season.

Tapias In January the revised version of Francisco Coll’s Trombone Concerto Tapias (‘Walls’) premiered in Madrid and Glasgow, impressing with its bold and original take on the genre. The later performance, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, trombonist Simon Johnson and Otto Tausk, was later broadcast on Radio 3.

PHOTO: FRANCISCO COLL © JUDITH LÖTSCHER

(World premiere) 24.10.15, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Petra Lang/Ensemble Intercontemporain/ Matthias Pintscher

Four Iberian Miniatures (Spanish premiere) 10-11.12.15, Auditorio Baluarte, Pamplona, Spain; Miguel Borrego/ Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra/ Cristóbal Soler

Hidd’n Blue

Liquid Symmetries Coll’s 13-minute work for 15 players from 2013, Liquid Symmetries, received two performances in Valencia last September by Grup Mixtour under their conductor Pablo Rus. Whilst the instrumental line up is modelled after the Chamber Symphony of his close mentor Thomas Adès, the soundworld created is far spikier and more astringent. A number of virtuoso solo lines wind their way through the work – notably a jittery, gyrating muted trumpet solo and recurring, murmured viola statements. Surrealistic juxtapositions abound, no more so than in the work’s final movement, with its strange, cavernously empty unison passages and the lone, slightly droll, cowbell – hitherto unheard – that sets up the typically enigmatic conclusion.

Looking Ahead... Coll’s future projects include a transcription of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder for Ensemble Intercontemporain and a large-scale orchestral piece for the Luxemburg Philharmonic. A score of his Piano Concertino will be published in the coming months.

Ralph Vaughan Williams Revised Edition of Sancta Civitas

19,24.2.16, Munich, Germany; Munich Philharmonic Orchestra/ Gustavo Gimeno

‘Tapias was an oddball piece with a tremendous racket that suggested to me, repeatedly, a busy, heaving urban landscape, including a foray into a hip-hop club. Johnson was the man outside, observing this teeming life; really a solitary figure, standing apart, blowing his noble, majestic long notes and solos, but not part of the crowd.’ The Herald (Michael Tumelty), 29 January 2015

Written in the early 1920s – a fecund period which also produced the Pastoral Symphony and Flos Campi – Sancta Civitas ‘The Holy City’ is one of Vaughan Williams’s most concentrated works. The 35-minute oratorio (for tenor and baritone soloists, SATB chorus, semi-chorus, distant choir and orchestra) sets texts from the Book of Revelation, including a graphic depiction of the destruction of Babylon. As well as being the first thoroughlyresearched edition of the piece, Faber Music’s new edition is far more practical than its predecessors, and includes revised rehearsal numbers.

George Benjamin Selected forthcoming performances

George Benjamin ‘The sounds are continually interesting and the voices are exposed in a way that is different from the usual operatic repertoire where the singers often struggle in vain against the pit... It runs an undisturbed, high-voltage line from the first to the last act…’

At First Light 17.4.15, Auditorium di Milano Milan, Lombardy, Italy: Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi di Milano/Mauro Bonifacio 31.5.15, The Orpheum, Vancouver, Canada: Vancouver Symphony/ Gordon Gerrard

Kultur (Av Gunilla Brodrej), 25 January 2015

25.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: London Sinfonietta/ George Benjamin

Octet 19.4.15, Kilbourn Hall, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA: Musicicans from the University of Rochester/Wei-Han Wu 11.7.15, Festival Messiaen au Pays de la Meije, France: Ensemble Accroche Note

Three Miniatures for Solo Violin 23.4.15, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Croatia: Martin Draušnik 20.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Isabelle Faust

Viola, Viola 23.4.15, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Croatia: Member of the Croatian String Quartet/Marko Otmačić

Piano Figures 23.4.15, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Croatia: Daan Vandewalle

Dream of the Song Benjamin’s output may be relatively modest in size, but each new work opens a new dimension to his creative universe. His next work – for countertenor, female voices and orchestra – promises to be no different. Dream of the Song will be premiered by the countertenor Bejun Mehta (the creator of the role of Angel 1/Boy in Written on Skin), the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the composer’s baton on 25-26 September in Amsterdam.

26.4.15, The Orpheum, Vancouver, Canada: Vancouver Symphony/ Gordon Gerrard

The work’s UK premiere will be given in March 2016 with Iestyn Davies, the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra under Oliver Knussen as part of a whole weekend devoted to Benjamin at London’s Barbican Centre. ‘Benjamin at the Barbican’ will also include the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in both a semi-staged performance of Written on Skin and a recital of chamber works.

Written on Skin

Sudden Time (Croatian premiere) 23.4.15, Muzički Biennale Zagreb, Croatia: Croatian Radiotelevison Orchestra/Johannes Kalitzke

Olicantus

2.5-5.6.15, Grosse Haus des Theaters St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland: Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen/dir. Nicola Raab/cond. Otto Tausk (US premiere) 11-15.8.15, Mostly Mozart Festival Lincoln Center, New York City, USA: Mahler Chamber Orchestra/dir. Katie Mitchell/cond.Alan Gilbert

Into the Little Hill 8-19.4.15, The Courtyard Theatre, London, UK: Shadwell Opera/ dir. Jack Furness/cond. Finnegan Downie Dear 11.6-4.7.15, Kammertheater, Stuttgart, Germany: Junge Oper of Oper Stuttgart/dir. Jenke Nordalm/ cond. Nicholas Kok

In December, Benjamin was announced as the recipient of the fourth annual Critics’ Circle Music Award for Oustanding Musician. The Chair of the jury made special mention of Written on Skin, remarking that it ‘seems to have awakened a new force in the composer and opened up deeper reaches in his musical imagination.’ This opera – surely the most successful to be composed this century – continues to travel the world. This year will see performances in St Gallen, Switzerland and at New York’s Lincoln Centre as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival. In February, the opera’s Scandanavian premiere, conducted by Lawrence Renes at the Royal Swedish Opera (Kay Metzger’s Detmold production) was rapturously received: ‘Musically it’s magnificent... Dramatically dense and with excellent use of the whole ensemble. A very suggestive and musically beautiful performance.’ Aftonbladet Kultur (Claes Wahlin), 26 January 2015

PHOTO: GEORGE BENJAMIN © MATTHEW LLOYD

‘Strangest is the perfect alloy of text and music. Benjamin and Crimp are a British constellation reminiscent of the Strauss and Hofmannsthal. The rather large orchestra is utilized with exceptional care and economy, often with unusual combinations of instruments: grating glass harmonica, muted brass sonorities and a wonderful solo [bass] viola da gamba... Everything subordinated to the song phrases - I cannot remember an opera where I have understood every word as clearly as in this newly composed work. The lyrics and music has such a strong poetic density that you do not want to miss a single note…’ SvD Kultur (Bo Löfvendahl), 25 January 2015

‘...one looks in vain for artistic compromise...’ ‘When a new opera occasionally hits a main stage, it meets a brief run of five or six performances before being greeted by the archivist. Not so George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, which this summer will have clocked more performances in three years than Peter Grimes. Indeed, its early performance history reminds one more of Verdi and Puccini than Britten… One looks in vain for artistic compromise. Benjamin’s score derives its high passions as much from its flawless control of time as from the composer’s magical ability to take timbres and harmonies and transform them into their apparent opposite without the ear quite being able to follow how – the ground shifts constantly beneath one, the music holding the listener breathlessly at its mercy. Crimp’s libretto, scrupulously set, centres on a gripping tale of sexual jealousy, murder and revenge. But it is also uncompromisingly arcane, frequently less concerned with gory details than with philosophical themes of writing and knowledge, property and freedom, sex and death…In partnership with Metzger’s intimate, tightly focused staging, the results are overwhelming.’ Financial Times (Guy Dammann), 22 February 2015

‘With its shimmering orchestral splendour and erotically charged love triangle, which has clear links to classics like Tristan and Isolde and Pelléas et Mélisande, Written on Skin is a perfect gateway into contemporary opera...Renes’ superb leadership gave full justice to Benjamin’s boldly illuminated opera universe.’ DN Kultur (Martin Nyström), 27 January 2015

TUNING IN

Torsten Rasch Toronto Focus

A Song Cycle for Sarah Connolly

In March, Benjamin was the curator of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s ‘New Creations’ Festival where he conducted three concerts, each containing a Canadian premiere. Ryan MacEvoy McCullough was soloist in Duet for piano and orchestra, whilst the festival culminated in a concert performance of Written on Skin featuring two members of the original cast – Christopher Purves and Barbara Hannigan. Hannigan also performed Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter, an atmospheric setting of Wallace Steven’s ‘The Snow Man’ for soprano and orchestra.

After the successful premiere of A Foreign Field at last year’s Three Choirs Festival (one of Classical Music Magazine’s Highlights of 2014), Torsten Rasch returns there this summer for the premiere of a new 15-minute song cycle. A Welsh Night will be premiered by mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly and pianist Joseph Middleton in Hereford on 1 August, as part of the Festival’s 300th anniversary celebrations. Setting poignant words by Alun Lewis – a Welsh poet who fought and died in the Second World War – the songs see Rasch turning again to Welsh folk melodies for inspiration (the central section of A Foreign Field was movingly built around ‘The Ash Grove’). Connolly is the latest in a growing number of the world’s leading singers, including Matthias Goerne and René Pape, who have taken an interest in Rasch’s work.

The German Premiere of A Foreign Field Stirring scenes greeted the German premiere of Rasch’s 40-minute cantata A Foreign Field in Chemnitz this March, with audiences powerfully moved by its expressive power. The Robert Schumann Philharmonie, conducted by Milko Kersten was joined by singers from Chemnitz Opera, the Dresden Chamber Choir and a delegation of singers from the Three Choirs Festival.

Sudden Time featured in Croatia ‘It was like sudden time in a world without time’ – lines from another Wallace Stevens poem, ‘Martial Cadenza’ which gave Benjamin the title for his 15-minute orchestral tour de force, Sudden Time. The product of lengthy gestation (the first sketches date from almost ten years before its premiere), the work is pivotal in the composer’s output as a whole and involved the invention of a new technical approach as well as the rejection of certain concepts tied to his earlier pieces. The texture throughout is conceived in linear terms, the audible harmony being created by the fusion of separate lines which occasionally coalesce in lucid moments of pulsed time. It’s a score filled with vivid originality, from the extraordinarily high viola solo which closes the piece, to an individual and alluring passage for a group of four alto flutes and two garklein (sopranissimo) recorders which recalls the sound world of Antara. As Renaud Machart has noted, the work also sees Benjamin focussing not on the brighter solo instruments (oboes, trumpets) which he favoured in earlier works like At First Light but rather the lower, darker, more unusual sonorities that continue to permeate his music. Sudden Time will be performed this April at the 2015 Music Biennale Zagreb, where Benjamin is a featured composer.

‘A deeply moving oratorio... An exceptional work, a masterpiece which gets under one’s skin... Psalm 91 [is] an impressive a cappella piece. Rasch’s handling of the choir is breathtaking and he certainly knows how to interpret and reinforce texts... Furthermore, the solo writing bespeaks his skill in opera. Equally experienced in orchestral writing, Rasch works memorably with structures and colours, with gestures and effects.’

George Benjamin Selected forthcoming performances (cont.) A Mind of Winter 13.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Claire Booth/Mahler Chamber Orchestra/George Benjamin

Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra 14.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Francois-Xavier Roth

Shadowlines 22.6.15, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Louis Lortie

Dream of the Song (World premiere) 25-26.9.15, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Bejun Mehta/Netherlands Chamber Choir/ Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ George Benjamin (UK premiere) 18.3.16, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: Iestyn Davies BBC Symphony Orchestra/BBC Singers/Oliver Knussen

Torsten Rasch Selected forthcoming performances A Welsh Night (world premiere) 1.8.15, Three Choirs Festival, Holy Trinity Church, Hereford, UK: Sarah Connolly/Joseph Middleton

Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten (Matthias Herrmann), 6 March 2015

‘The choirboys recite as if in fear of death single latin words – the last islands of civilization on the day of wrath – before they are engulfed in the abyss. A frightful moment in which the composer makes the desperation tangible… Breathless silence – then rapturous applause. No question: A Foreign Field must be performed in Dresden.’ Sächsische Zeitung (Martin Morgenstern), 8 March 2015

‘Profoundly moving… The composer has created an ambitious work, which acts like a ripped-open wound. A work in which war drills and grinds itself inexorably into the lives of two young people whose beautiful, shimmering future hopes collapse into dust and shadows. Rasch is very well versed in depicting this downward spiral in sound, in all its perfidious facets. The labours of the four percussionists alone created a crazy sensual orgy… Rasch unsettlingly reveals what is lurking under the filmy varnish of human civilization.’

PHOTOS: (LEFT) BARBARA HANNIGAN © RAPHAEL BRAND (RIGHT) SARAH CONNOLLY © PETER WARREN

Freie Presse (Tim Hofmann), 6 March 2015

NEW WORKS Stage Works TANSY DAVIES Between Worlds (2014)

opera in 11 scenes. Duration 90 minutes. Libretto by Nick Drake (English). FP: 11.4.2015, Barbican Centre, London, UK: English National Opera/Gerry Cornelius. Co-commissioned by ENO and the Barbican, London. 16 singers: Shaman (CT)/Janitor (Bar)/Younger Woman (S)/Realtor (MS)/Younger Man (T)/Older Man (BBar)/Mother of Younger MAN (MS)/Lover Of Younger Woman (MS)/Babysitter (S)/Wife of Older Man (S)/ Security Guard (T)/Firefighter 1 (T)/Firefighter 2 (Bar)/Sister Of Younger Man (S)/Child (boy)/Older Executive (T) Chorus. 2(II=afl+picc).2.2(II=ebcl).bcl.0 - 2.1.0.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(2) - harp - strings Full score, vocal score and parts on hire GABRIEL PROKOFIEV Terra Incognita (2014)

ballet for string ensemble of 10 players and electronics. Duration 29 mins. 3 vln.3 vla.3 vlc.db - electronics. Commissioned by Rambert. FP: 18.11.2014, Sadler’s Wells, London, UK: Rambert Dance Company/ch. Shobana Jeyasingh/cond. Paul Hoskins. In preparation

Silent Films CARL DAVIS Steamboat Bill, Jr.(2014)

Joseph M. Schenck Productions (1928) Director: Charles Reisner & Buster Keaton. Duration 71 minutes. FP: 27.03.2015, Turner Classic Movies Festival, Hollywood, CA, USA: Carl Davis 1(=picc).0.1.0 - 0.1.1.1 - perc(3) - pno/synth - ukulele(=gtr and electric gtr) - strings (1.1.1.1.1).Score and parts for hire

Orchestra MALCOLM ARNOLD/TIM RICE Peterloo (choral version) (1967/arr.2009) arranged by Ben Parry

SATB chorus and orchestra. Duration 10 mins. Text: Tim Rice (Eng). 2.picc.2.2.2 - 4331 - timp - perc(4) harp - strings. FP: 13.9.2014, Last Night of the Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK: BBC SO & Chorus/ Sakari Oramo MATTHEW HINDSON Resonance (2014)

installation piece for orchestra and electronics, in a non-standard space. Duration 18 mins. picc.1.2.2.2 4.2.2.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(1) - strings (66431). Commissioned by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. FP: 16.8.2014, MONA Synaesthesia Plus Festival, Hobart, TAS, Australia: Tasmanian SO/Marko Letonja. Score and parts for hire

GABRIEL PROKOFIEV Overture 87654321 (2014)

Orchestra. Duration 10 mins. 2(II=picc).2.2(II=bcl).2(II=cbsn) - 4200 - timp (4 drums) - perc(2) - strings. Commissioned by the Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn. FP: 10.12.2014, Pau, France: Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn/Faycal Karoui. Score and parts for hire. CARL VINE Concerto for Orchestra (2014)

symphony orchestra. Duration 21 minutes. FP: 10.10.2014, Perth Concert Hall, Perth, Australia: West Australian Symphony Orchestra/Michael Stern. Commissioned by Geoff Stearn for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.3.3.3.3 - 4.3.3.1 - timp - perc(2) - harp - strings. Score and parts in preparation

Chamber Orchestra FRANCISCO COLL Four Iberian Miniatures (2014)

violin and chamber orchestra. Duration 12 minutes. FP: 2.11.2014, Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, UK: Pekka Kuusisto/Britten Sinfonia/Thomas Adès. Commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Saffron Hall. 2.1.1.bcl.1.cbsn – 1.1.1.0 – perc(2) - pno - strings. Score and parts on hire

String Orchestra DAVID MATTHEWS Two Nocturnes (2014) - Chopin Op. 37 No. 2 and Op. 55 No. 1 arr. Matthews.

string ensemble. Duration c.8 minutes. FP: 5.12.2014, Queen’s Cross Church, Aberdeen: Scottish Ensemble. Commissioned by the Scottish Ensemble. (4.3.2.2.1). Score and parts on hire. TOM COULT My Curves are not Mad (2015)

string orchestra. Duration 14 minutes. FP: 20.3.2015 Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Carlos del Cueto/Britten Sinfonia. Commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia with support from the William Alwyn Foundation. 6.5.4.3.2. Score and parts on hire PETER SCULTHORPE Lament for violin, cello and strings (2014)

violin, cello and strings. Duration c.10 minutes. FP: 18.10.2014, Winthrop Hall, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia. Score and parts on hire Salve Regina (2014)

soprano and strings. Duration 3½ minutes. Text: Traditional (Latin). FP: 24.8.2014, St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne, Wales, UK: Rachel Nicholls/ Presteigne Festival Orchestra/George Vass. Score and parts on hire.

Chamber Ensemble

LIN MARSH

TOM COULT

The Wild Swans (2014)

Sparking and Slipping (2014)

Narrator, children’s choir and orchestra (or piano) (orchestrated by Steve Pickett). Duration 40 mins. Text: Lin Marsh and Wendy Cook (after Hans Christian Andersen) (Eng). 1111- 2110 - timp - perc(3): drum kit/ siz.cym/tam-t/xyl/glsp - synth - harp - bgtr - strings (8.8.6.4.2). Commissioned by the Hallé Orchestra, and written for Shirley Court and the members of the Hallé Children’s Choir. FP: 29.6.2014, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: Hallé Orchestra & Children’s Choir/Stephen Bell. Full score, vocal score and parts for hire. COLIN MATTHEWS The Pied Piper of Hamelin (2014)

2 narrators, children’s chorus and orchestra. Duration c.42 minutes. Text by Michael Morpurgo (English). FP: 8.2.2015, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: Michael Morpurgo and Natalie Walter (narrators)/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Jurowski. Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with the generous support of the PRS for Music Foundation, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, David Robertson, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, and the Seattle Symphony. 2(II=picc).afl.2(II=ca ad lib.).2.bcl.2 - 4.3.3.1 timp - perc(3) - pno(=cel ad lib.) - harp - strings. Full score, vocal score, children’s score and parts on hire DAVID MATTHEWS Symphony No.8 (2014)

orchestra. Duration 26 minutes. FP: 17.4.2015, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/HK Gruber. Commissioned by the BBC. 3(III=picc).3(III=ca).3(III=bcl).3( III=cbsn) - 4.3.3.1 - timp - perc(2) - cel - harp - strings. Full score, vocal score, children’s score and parts on hire Toward Sunrise (2014)

orchestra. Duration 9½ minutes. FP: 8.7.2015, Lichfield Cathedral, Lichfield, Staffordshire, UK: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Lahav Shani. For Barrie Gavin. 2(II=picc).2(II=ca).2.1.cbsn - 3.2.0.0 - timp - perc(2) - pno - strings. Score and parts on hire

violin, piano, harp and percussion. Duration c.11½ minutes. FP: 11.9.2014, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, UK: Sarah Hill/Hannah Ely/Anne Denholm/Henry Fynn/Tom Coult. Written for Sarah Hill. vln.pno.harp.perc(1): glsp/vib/crot/tam-t. Score and parts on hire MATTHEW HINDSON Rush (1999/arr. 2015)

piano trio. Duration 9 mins. Commissioned by the Benaud Trio. FP: 7.3.2015, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Benaud Trio String Quartet No 3: Ngeringa (2015)

Duration 16 mins. Commissioned by Ngeringa Arts, to commemorate the opening of its Cultural Centre at Mount Barker. FP: 30.8.2015, Ngeringa Cultural Centre, Mount Barker, SA, Australia: Australian String Quartet CARL VINE Harbour Reverie (2014)

string quartet. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 14.10.2014, Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Borodin Quartet. To Mary Jo, on the occasion of her 60th birthday. Score and parts on special sale

Instrumental FRANCISCO COLL Hyperludes (2014)

solo violin. Duration 16 minutes. Hyperludes I-III FP: 2014/15 Valencia, Spain: Elina Rubio. Hyperlude IV FP: 25.3.2015 King’s Place, London, UK: London Sinfonietta. Hyperludes I-III were commissioned by Manuel Tomás, Hyperlude IV was commissioned by London Sinfonietta. Score on special sale COLIN MATTHEWS Syrinx (2014) - Debussy arr. Matthews

arrangement for flute and piano. Duration 2½ minutes. Score on special sale

NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS DAVID MATTHEWS Bright Wings (2015) op.134

double bass and piano. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 21.04.2015, Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall, Manchester, United Kingdom: Alex Jones/David Jones. Dedicated to the memory of Michael Kennedy. Commissioned by the Ida Carroll Trust, for a concert on April 21st 2015 to celebrate the opening of the Ida Carroll Walkway at the Royal Northern College of Music. Score on special sale from the hire library.

New Publications

New Recordings

TANSY DAVIES

THOMAS ADÈS

Between Worlds

Arcadiana

Libretto. 0-571-53910-6 £7.99

Signum Quartet C5239

OLIVER KNUSSEN Higglety Pigglety Pop!

Mazurkas

Opera. Full Score 0-571-52957-7 £150

Richard Uttley ARC01002

ALEXANDER L’ESTRANGE

Piano Quintet/ The Four Quarters/ Arcadiana

Fifteen Preludes (2007-2015) Op.132

Song Cycle

solo violin. Duration 20-30 minutes. FP of the complete set: 29.3.2015, Cyprus: Peter Sheppard Skaerved. Score on special sale from the hire library.

SATB choir and jazz quintet. 0-571-53874-6 £9.99

Thomas Adès/ Calder Quartet SIGCD413

DAVID MATTHEWS

ANDERSON / BENJAMIN / MESSIAEN

To what God shall we chant our songs of battle?

CARL VINE

Treble ATB (mixed choir?). 0-571-57157-3 £1.75

Piano Etudes No. 1-3/ Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm/ La Fauvette Passerinette

Harbour Reverie (2014)

NICHOLAS MAW

Ein Celloleben (2014)

solo cello. Duration 4 minutes. Commissioned by Guy Johnston. Score in preparation.

violin and piano. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 28.11.2014, Huntington Estate, Mudgee, NSW, Australia: Ray Chen/Timothy Young. To Mary Jo, on the occasion of her 60th birthday. Score and part on special sale.

Vocal

Concert Suite from Sophie’s Choice

Orchestra. Full Score. 0-571-52238-6 £24.99 OLIVIER MESSIAEN

Peter Hill DCD34141 MALCOLM ARNOLD Philharmonic Concerto/ Fantasy on a theme of John Field/ Symphony No. 7

Solo piano. 0-571-53905-X £10.99

Peter Donohoe/ Royal Scottish National Orchestra/ Martin Yates CDLX 7318

GEORGE BENJAMIN

PETER SCULTHORPE

HOWARD GOODALL

Dream of the Song (2014)

Sonatina

And the Bridge is Love

Solo piano. 0-571-51989-X £7.99

(premiere recording, Julian Lloyd Webber’s final solo recording) Julian Lloyd Webber/English Chamber Orchestra Naxos 8.573250

countertenor, female chorus and orchestra. Duration c.14 minutes. FP: 25.9.2015, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Bejun Mehta/ Netherlands Chamber Choir/Royal Concergebouw Orchestra/George Benjamin. Commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Festival d’Automne. score and parts in preparation.

La Fauvette Passerinette

MARTIN SUCKLING Candlebird

Baritone and Large Ensemble. Full Score. 0-571-53889-4 £24.99 RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

COLIN MATTHEWS

Sancta civitas

Five Songs (2015) - Sibelius arr. Matthews

Oratorio. Full score. 0-571-52244-0 £19.99

soprano and orchestra. Duration c.12 minutes. FP: 15.4.2015, Concert Hall, Music Centre, Helsinki, Finland: Soile Isokoski/Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu. Commissioned by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. 2.2.2.bcl.2 - 4.2.3.0 - timp - perc(1): tgl/tam-t harp - strings.Score and parts on hire. JOHN WOOLRICH

CARL VINE The Tree of Man

High voice and strings. Full score. 0-571-52253-X £10.99

ALEXANDER L’ESTRANGE Rain

(premiere recording) Sospiri/Christopher Watson Convivium Records ‘A Multitude of Voices’ CRO26 GABRIEL PROKOFIEV Selected Classical Works 2003-2012

(String Quartet Nos 1 & 2; Concerto for Turntables & Orchestra; Cello Multitracks; Piano Book No 1; Import/Export) Various artists Nonclassical NONCLSS017

The Voices (2014)

PETER SCULTHORPE

for bass and piano trio. Duration 20 minutes. Text: Rilke in an English version by the Composer (English). FP: 7.3.2015, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK: Matthew Rose/Angell Trio. Commissioned by the Michael Cuddigan Trust. Score and parts on hire.

The Complete String Quartets with Didjeridu

Choral

Del Sol String Quartet/ Stephen Kent DSL-92181 The Complete Works for Solo Piano

Tamara-Anna Cislowska ABC 481 1181

HOWARD GOODALL Promises of Grace (2013)

anthem for SATB choir, trumpet and organ. Duration 4 mins. Text: based on the former “Prayer of St Francis”. Original text anon., erroneously attributed to St Francis of Assisi. This version by Howard Goodall. For the congregation and choir of St Francis Church, Simon’s Town, South Africa, on the occasion of its bi-centenary and in support of its Homes to Grow project. FP: 27.9.2014, St Francis Church, Simonstown, South Africa: St Francis Church Choir/Nick Hodson ALEXANDER L’ESTRANGE Rain (2014)

unaccompanied SATB chorus (with baritone solo). Duration 4 mins. Text: Edward Thomas (Eng). Commissioned by Sospiri. FP: 9.11.2014, St John the Evangelist, Oxford, UK: Sospiri/Christopher Watson TORSTEN RASCH Soldier’s Psalm from A Foreign Field (2014)

anthem for mixed chorus. Duration c.6½ minutes. Text: Psalm 91 (Latin). FP: As part of ‘A Foreign Field’: 31.7.14, Three Choirs Festival, Worcester Cathedral, UK: Yeree Suh/Roderick Williams/Three Choirs Festival Chorus/Philharmonia Orchestra/Baldur Brönnimann. Score on special sale from the hire library

Water is now available for performance by other orchestras. The score is viewable on the Faber Online Score Library.

London Contemporary Orchestra tour Europe with Jonny Greenwood

Martin Ward: new composer signing Faber Music is delighted to announce the signing of an exclusive publishing agreement with UK composer, Martin Ward. Martin is a composer of music for opera, dance and theatre, as well as for screen and the concert stage. His narrative works explore an eclectic range of styles and genres which reflect the adventurous scope of the stories he has tackled, and many involve the merging of diverse musical elements, both acoustic and electronic. He is the composer of Will Tuckett’s Olivier Award winning dance-theatre production of The Wind in the Willows (revived last Christmas in London’s West End), as well as a number of other critically-acclaimed narrative ballets, including Pinocchio and Faeries for the Royal Opera House, and The Canterville Ghost for English National Ballet; and four operas including Skitterbang Island and the Edinburgh Fringe First nominated Dr Quimpugh’s Compendium of Peculiar Afflictions. His new chamber opera, Clocks (the steampunk opera), is currently in development.

Valgeir Sigurðsson residency with Alarm Will Sound Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurðsson has been appointed to a prestigious one-year residency with US new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, as part of their Alarm System project. Following workshops with the group in October 2014, Alarm Will Sound and Alan Pierson premiere the new piece, Veej, in St Louis in May.

Jonny Greenwood’s ‘Water’ comes to USA Following its premiere performances in Europe and Australia last year, Jonny Greenwood’s orchestral work, Water, arrives in the USA in April 2015. The Australian Chamber Orchestra present the 18-minute work eight times on their upcoming tour, culminating in a Carnegie Hall date on 26 April: ‘Time and again a little melodic phrase cascaded from the heights of the violins down to the depths of the basses, touching on different harmonies along the way... Greenwood is developing a cunning sense of form, to go with the sharp ear for harmony and texture he’s always had.’ The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 5 October 2014

‘The rhythmic ostinati and the shimmering rise and cascade of scales, with rippling chromatic colour, created a more dynamic effect. Greenwood bowed as modestly as a novice; in fact, he is anything but.’ The Guardian (Rian Evans), 8 October 2014

Over the past year the LCO have further cemented their relationship with Greenwood having premiered his Doghouse (2010), as well as championing other of his scores. In 2014 they launched the live film version of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, There Will Be Blood, and then curated a series of shows with Greenwood premiering several short pieces for electric guitar/ondes Martenot and string ensemble. These shows took place in diverse and eclectic performing spaces, including a converted London power station, a wind tunnel in Hampshire, an Oxford church and Manchester’s Albert Hall. 2015 sees them touring the project in Europe, with dates in Geneva (Festival Antigel), Best Kept Secret Festival, Holland (21 June), Berlin, Open’r Festival, Gdansk (3 July), and Budapest. Greenwood contributed a new 10-minute piano piece for the Geneva event.

‘It was live music at its most electrifying…’ ‘It was live music at its most electrifying… The first new piece, Miniature, is sweet, diaphanous and piano-based. Fight With Cudgels, as its name would suggest, is much more muscular and bracing. Microtonal Sketches is a hypnotic and disorientating work made out of notes with intervals less than a semitone. It sounded like some kind of bat ultrasound. Loop saw Greenwood take up the electric guitar which was, yes, looped and built on, blooming and pulsing. It had more in common with the Radiohead idiom than anything else on the menu. Before Self-Portrait With Seven Fingers began, the audience were directed to a web page with a message saying there were 7×7 chances to chime in with the piece using our mobile devices. Soft, pacific bleeps were released all over the power station like an audio constellation. It was a potent way of bringing the crowd into a mutual experience, common to rock gigs but unusual at traditional classical concerts. The five pieces suggest Greenwood’s creativity is at a particularly fertile and interesting point. Though he’s only been publishing classical music for a decade or so, I imagine there’s a lot more to come. The pieces premiered last night are, in my mind, some of his greatest works.’ NME Magazine (Lucy Jones), 24 February 2014

‘When Greenwood picked up the guitar, we were reminded of his immense talent as a musician as well as a composer. His multi-faceted and absorbing guitar solo was hands down one of the best I’ve ever seen live. If the Boiler Room’s aim was to encourage young people to swap drum and bass for double bass, Jonny Greenwood and the London Contemporary Orchestra will undoubtedly be a catalyst in the conversion.’ Manchester Evening News (Beth Ashton), 11 October 2014

Howard Goodall pens title track for Julian Lloyd Webber’s last solo album Howard Goodall’s And the Bridge is Love (2008) for cello, harp and strings, is the title track on what is Julian Lloyd Webber’s final album as a soloist, having being forced into early retirement due to a devastating neck injury. The haunting 10-minute piece was written in memory of a teenage cellist, the daughter of a friend. The Naxos release also features works by Elgar, Walton, Delius, Ireland and William Lloyd Webber, in performances accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra.

ballet by Jeyasingh with electronic score by Prokofiev. It was premiered by Shobana Jeyasingh Dance on a UK tour from March-May this year. More next time.

Prokofiev’s Pau residency launches with orchestral premiere Gabriel Prokofiev is Composer-in-Residence to the Orchestre de Paul Pays de Bearn for 3 years from 2014-17. The orchestra commissioned and premiered Prokofiev’s Concerto for Trumpet, Turntables, Percussion & Orchestra in 2014 and got the new relationship underway with the premiere of a short orchestral work, Overture 87654321 on 10 December last year. There were three performances of the Concerto for Bass Drum & Orchestra in January and a new fanfare will be unveiled on 9 April.

L’Estange’s Song Cycle and Zadok Rules now in print

Shobana Jeyasingh premieres Prokofiev ballet scores Gabriel Prokofiev’s new ballet for Rambert Dance and Shobana Jeyasingh, Terra Incognita, was launched to great acclaim at Sadler’s Wells, London with seven performances in five days. Commissioned by Rambert Dance the one-act piece is scored for ten string instruments and electronics. Terra Incognita was Jeyasingh’s first ballet for Rambert and also the first time that her choreography had been performed at Sadler’s Wells. The Rambert Orchestra was conducted in all performances by Paul Hoskins: ‘…All of this buoyed up by the scintillating commissioned score for strings and electronics…’ The Times (Donald Hutera), 20 November 2014

‘Terra Incognita is not only an asset to the repertory, it’s one of her own best works… As 10 dancers traverse the stage, the accompanying sounds of high strings and chugging beats and the eerie overlay of rattles and whistles are all strikingly evocative of alien spaces and human determination.’ The Guardian (Judith Mackrell), 19 November 2014

The production next travels to Edinburgh, for performances from 27-29 November. It was revived by Rambert in March 2015, with dates in Mold and Inverness. Meanwhile, the Royal Ballet Studio Programme has commissioned ‘Bayadère - The Ninth Life’, a full-evening

Alexander L’Estrange’s latest large-scale choral adventure is now in print and available for performance. Song Cycle is a 45-minute collection of ten songs on the subject of cycling and the great outdoors. It’s scored for SATB choir and jazz quintet. Following the York Minster premiere last summer, the work is already being programmed by other choirs, and has just been recorded for commercial release on the Anadagio label. The community choral piece Zadok Rules - Hallelujah! is also now out in print. It’s an 8-minute celebration of our rich cultural heritage, marking the 60th Anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Based on the music of Handel and Arne, it sets a text that wittily traces all of the English monarchs from William the Conqueror to the present day. Zadok Rules - Hallelujah! can be performed by children’s choir and/ or SATB chorus, with either chamber orchestra or piano accompaniment. In addition to the printed vocal score, we also offer a digital bundle via Choralstore, incorporating single-line children’s part, children’s part plus piano accompaniment and free learning audio tracks.

Faber Silents: an interview with Carl Davis Can you tell us about the new Buster Keaton titles you are working on? The new one is Steamboat Bill, Jr. and that’s going to be premiered at the end of March at the Turner festival. It’s a story of a father who has been separated from his son since he was a child – a really rough steamboat captain – and the son emerges after this long separation. The son (Keaton) has come from college in Boston and, equipped with this education, he’s kind of every father’s nightmare. He dresses very eccentrically – his greatest sin is he’s wearing a beret! The other aspect of it is the final 15 minutes of the film – there is an enormous hurricane and that is something else. It’s a grand spectacle. [Also] I’ve been recording a short which I had done in ’87, which is a marvellous film satirising the vogue for DIY, One Week. Another part of this package is this amazing almost Dada-esque short called The Playhouse. The first 15 minutes is set in a variety theatre and Keaton plays all the roles. It’s quite extraordinary. The High Sign and The Scarecrow are to come. New prints have been commissioned and I’m waiting. How do you go about composing a silent film score? My first step is to absorb what the film is about: What is it offering me? What kind of film is it? What is the meaning? What is the feeling? What is the context? What are these scenes about? What historical period is it in? All these questions have to be answered. First of all I try to watch [the film] through without stopping so I get an impression. Then I watch it in great detail as I have to analyse the synchronisation and create a kind of script for myself; how long scenes are, what happens during them, what elements can I pick out? And then I have to work out what kind of music I write. Steamboat Bill, Jr. is set on the banks of a great river; it’s about life around this small town which serves as a port and dock for steamboats so the atmosphere is rural, the life is lazy. Can you tell us about the use of pre-existing music in silent film scores? The use of non-original music – classical music, popular music of the time – was the practice of the day. Preparing the music for the Hollywood series I had the chance to meet Ann Leaf, the last organist at the Paramount theatre in New York and I asked, “How do you put together your scores?” She opened the door of a very large cupboard and said “well here’s my library. This shelf is very, very good for chase music and then on the shelf below I keep all my love scenes!” I don’t think she was a composer so she put together her scores from already existing music. What’s your favourite part of Live Cinema? The unique thing for me is that when you are conducting or performing there are certain moments in the various films where my plan is working: I’m hitting the synch points I plan to. And I measure each performance according to [whether I’ve] actually succeeded in hitting that particular moment. There is a moment in Flesh and the Devil where [Garbo and Gilbert] are at a ball, he asks her to dance and they get into position, very deliberately. My job is to create a romantic

sense of anticipation, then I have to be the orchestra playing for this waltz, and there is this very set-up moment in which she’s in his arms and posed and then... whoosh, off they go. If I can actually be there each step of the way to the moment it cuts to the wide shot and they’re in the middle of a large group of dancers, I feel like I’m waltzing with Garbo! [For comedies] the reward is in laughter. Musicians, for instance, are thrilled when they hear people laughing. They can’t believe it. It’s quite extraordinary, the effect on the orchestra when they realise, ‘Oh, it’s funny’. Of the films you’ve worked on which is your favourite and which is your favourite score? They all have merit and I think I enjoy conducting The Wind if I have to pick a favourite and I think I love doing Flesh and the Devil because it’s such a romantic wallow. But the comedies are also incredible to conduct because of the interaction with the audience and to be there, hitting laugh after laugh after laugh, is a great experience. What have you not done yet that you would like to do in the world of Silent Films and Live Cinema? I would really like to do more films that are not Hollywood films. There’s an incredible Russian, Scandinavian, German and French tradition of which I’ve done a certain amount but not enough. I’d like to get into the Eisensteins. We did a series called The Other Hollywood and I did the episode on German film and French film and God, they were treasures, real treasures, and I’d love to be able to do more of them.

Anniversaries There are a number of anniversaries coming up for films and stars in the Faber Silents catalogue in the next few years: 2016 The 100th anniversary of Charlie Chaplin’s work with the Mutual production company in America which culminated in the 12 shorts featured in the Faber Silents catalogue 2016 50 years since the death of Buster Keaton – new titles available for premieres 2016 100 years since the release of D. W. Griffith’s epic, Intolerance 2017 Harold Lloyd created his character of ‘The Boy’ in 1917, as featured in Faber Silent shorts An Eastern Westerner and High and Dizzy, and feature Safety Last If you would like any further information please contact fabersilents@fabermusic.com

INTERVIEWS

Dame Fanny Waterman In this anniversary year, Faber Music is celebrating Dame Fanny Waterman’s fundamental and vast contribution to music education with the release of her autobiography, Dame Fanny Waterman: My Life in Music. Due out later in the year, it tells the extraordinary story of one of the twentieth century’s most inspirational British women. Born into an artistic family in impoverished circumstances, her prodigious musical talent and sheer determination was her passport out of hardship, leading to recognition as one of the most talented young pianists of her generation. Her emergence as a visionary teacher leads to the founding of the Leeds International Piano Competition and relationships with many internationally renowned pianists whose lives she has touched through her work. Interwoven through the story, Dame Fanny shares her inspirational philosophies on life, learning and music, and her compelling and utter passion for the piano.

Piano Lessons One Anniversary Edition In celebration of its 50th Anniversary, Faber Music is rereleasing their first ever educational publication, Piano Lessons Book One in a special commemorative edition. Devised jointly by distinguished authors Dame Fanny Waterman and Marion Harewood, the Piano Lessons series is established as one of the foremost piano methods. Technical material is skilfully and imaginatively presented, while each chapter guides the young player towards the successful performance of a comprehensive selection of pieces and studies. With a commemorative front

cover and a brand new foreword from world famous pianist Lang Lang, this seminal publication should be on every student’s piano. Piano Lessons Book One, Dame Fanny Waterman & Marion Harewood, 0-571-50024-2, £6.50 Dame Fanny Waterman DBE has been an inspiration to millions of pianists around the world over the decades, thanks to her wonderful books and her vision in founding the Leeds International Piano Competition. I don’t think there is a concert hall in the world that hasn’t felt the impact of her work, through both the great pianists she has helped along their way and the many pianists in the audience who have learnt from her methods. Piano Lessons Book One was the very first educational tutor published by Faber Music, back in 1967: it is amazing to think that well over 2,000,000 copies have reached the hands of young pianists since that time. On behalf of the global piano community, and all your students and users of your books, we thank you for your drive and passion for this wonderful instrument! I am truly honoured to be associated with this tradition and feel sure that Dame Fanny Waterman’s vision will live on as a positive force for many years to come. Pianist and Global Ambassador for the Leeds International Piano Competition

Books on music from Faber & Faber Words Without Music: A Memoir | Philip Glass A world-renowned composer of symphonies, operas, and film scores, Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late twentieth-century classical music. Biography lovers will be inspired by the story of a precocious Baltimore boy, the son of a music-shop owner, who entered college at age fifteen, before travelling to Paris to study under the legendary Nadia Boulanger; Glass devotees will be fascinated by the stories behind Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, among so many other works. Whether recalling his experiences working at Bethlehem Steel, travelling in India, driving a cab in 1970s New York, or his professional collaborations with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Ravi Shankar, Robert Wilson, Doris Lessing, and Martin Scorsese, Words Without Music affirms the power of music to change the world. Martin Scorsese on Words Without Music: ‘I was excited to work with Philip on Kundun, and he exceeded my wildest expectations by giving us a score that was genuinely transcendent. He’s exceeded my expectations again with this rich and beautifully written memoir. Who knew that he was as good a writer as he is a composer?’ Hardback Publication date

£22.50 2 April 2015

9780571 323722

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A Fascinating Messiaen Work Unearthed Whilst working on Messiaen’s sketches in 2012, renowned scholar and pianist Peter Hill came across several pages of what seemed to be a complete Messiaen piano work, written in a rapid yet decisive hand. This was a draft score for La Fauvette Passerinette (‘The Subalpine Warbler’) a previously unknown composition dating from 1961 and now published for the first time by Faber Music in a reconstruction by Hill. Perhaps intended to be part of a second cycle of Catalogue d’oiseaux, the work demonstrates a fascinating development in Messiaen’s approach: more abstract than in the extant book (1956-8), it mainly works with birdsong itself, apart from a few background colour chords. Since the birdsong has to create its own harmony, the writing is richer than in the earlier Catalogue, a stepping stone to the later birdsong style in La Fauvette des jardins and the opera Saint François d’Assise. An invaluable document for any Messiaen enthusiast, La Fauvette Passerinette offers fascinating insights into the thoughts of one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest composers.

‘A significant and dramatic work, having clear resonances with the Catalogue d’oiseaux but with Messiaen clearly going in a different direction in his treatment of the birdsong.’ BBC Music Magazine (Christopher Dingle), December 2014

‘...a dramatic and pivotal piece…’ BBC Radio 3 CD Review, 15 November 2014

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Written & devised by Sam Wigglesworth with contributions from Helen McLean and Tim Brooke Designed by Sam Wigglesworth and Dave Warden

The manuscript appeared to be in advanced state of completion, and was evidently considered so by Messiaen, who at one point reminds himself to make a fair copy... The outer sections of the piece – which feature the song of the soloist – are entirely finished, down to details of pedalling and even fingering, the middle is more fragmentary and required a certain amount of detective work. The order of events was determined by following Messiaen’s alphabetically laid-out scheme; and I was able to supply missing dynamics or marks of articulation by consulting Messiaen’s birdsong notebooks which contain the transcriptions on which the music is closely based: these were the only additions I made. Peter Hill La Fauvette Passerinette is available from the Faber Music store priced at £10.99. (ISBN 0-571-52253-X)

‘An utterly convincing and thrilling piece of piano writing – a fierce, sustained 11-minute study as rigorous as Messiaen’s piano works of the late 1940s, and culminating in a ferocious toccata that squeezes every bit of musical content out of the raw material.’ The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 22 October 2014

‘What a discovery!… stunning – joyous, syncopated and virtuosic…’ The Times (Richard Morrison), 8 November 2014

‘Quite a revelation’ The Scotsman (Ken Walton), 2 November 2014

‘The initial duet of two passerines… has an innocently lyrical charm, with the songs of other birds… then gradually woven into a more fiendish texture: the final moto perpetuo creates a brilliant, headlong drive before ending with a witty chirrup.’

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The Guardian (Rian Evans), 18 February 2015