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CLASSICAL NOTES BY NICK BOSTON
REVIEWS
together with falling melodies, create a remarkably moving memorial, finishing with the pianist plucking strings in the keyboard, “a further expression of vanished glory”. Once again, Swayne dazzles throughout with his technique, but more importantly, given the subject matter, the programme is thoughtful and striking, and his performances transparently moving and respectful.
CONCERTS GILLIAN KEATH. PHOTO BY CLARE PARK
) Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) is back with Great Baroque Playing with Fire, including music by Bach, Purcell, and Vivaldi, ending with Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. Robert Howarth directs, joined by soprano Gillian Keith (2.45pm, Sun 7, Brighton Dome). JOANNA MACGREGOR
) BPO’s music director Joanna MacGregor leads a folk-inspired concert with the Brighton Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble, playing Frank Martin, Shostakovich and Dvorák (11am, Sun 14, ACCA). Tickets: 01273 709709, www.brightondome.org. CATHERINE LARSEN-MAGUIRE
the quartets this addition makes perfect sense, building on his ) Dave Flynn Irish Minimalism use of drones, lilting lines and (First Hand Records FHR116). twisting and turning melodic Irish composer Dave Flynn catches. The final work here, Stories (b.1977) works across classical, from the Old World, presents the Irish folk, jazz and rock genres. stories with Breanndán Begley’s His album Irish Minimalism soft and warm local Kerry Gaelic explores his particular take on a dialect (translations provided in composition style largely associated the notes), mostly recited over with American composers such simple and light accompaniment as Steve Reich and Philip Glass. with occasional pizzicato or glassy He maintains that some of interjections. The stories once told, minimalism’s key features, such as the musicians take over with lively repetition and gradual incremental jigs and winding figures from the pipes. The tales are evocative and full of bawdy humour (the second story is entitled It Was With a Fart I Won Her…), but also moving as Begley shifts into song in The Piper and the Woman of the Tavern, his gently lilting voice accompanied by lightly skittering pizzicato strings in the background. After the final tale, The Old Hags, the pace picks up for a lively dance, with driving minimalist repetition changes, all fit well in an Irish to finish. A thoroughly enjoyable traditional musical context. The and fascinating collection of Cranning, a string quartet played works, effectively demonstrating by the ConTempo Quartet, has an the remarkable closeness of two arrestingly jagged opening, and seemingly unrelated musical complex dancing cross-rhythms traditions. abound. Drone effects with quiet ) Adam Swayne 9/11:20 chords building up and gently Memorials on the 20th sliding from one to another are anniversary of September 11th reminiscent of the pipes to come (Coviello Classics COV92111). I in other works here, and Donegal reviewed pianist Adam Swayne’s dance music combines with first solo recording back in 2019, Afro-Cuban and Malian rhythms. and was impressed then by his The Keening is also played by the phenomenal technique but also ConTempo Quartet, and as the name his thought-provoking choice of would suggest, is more anguished, repertoire. He’s back, and this with its mysterious, murmuring time with even more challenging opening, glassy string sounds and repertoire, both technically and cello slides, all building through emotionally. The album delves into hypnotic keening to distressed, how art, and particularly music, can screeching high violins. Following a attempt to commemorate such a keening dirge, the final movement, Cry, again uses very high pitches, with Eastern European inflections in the melodic lines, before dying away to nothing. The Cutting was originally planned as Flynn’s String Quartet No. 4, but with the addition of the uilleann pipes, it has become his Quintet No. 1 (here played by the IMO Quartet, with Mick O’Brien on pipes). Alongside
traumatic event. In Karen Walwyn’s Reflections on 9/11, she explicitly avoids the attacks themselves, focusing on impressions of the late summer morning before the attacks, followed by movements confronting different emotions following the event. Anguish begins relatively sparsely, but gradually becomes denser in texture, although its richness cannot disguise the sense of trauma. Burial is equally traumatic, but perhaps more inward looking, and it ends with some kind of sense of acceptance. American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965) was a pioneer of 20th century piano music, particularly in terms of extended techniques such as using the forearm to play clusters of notes at once, used in The Tides of Manaunaun to colossal and dramatic effect, and in his Aeolian Harp, the practice of strumming or plucking the strings inside the piano. Fabric initially feels more conventional, but its fiendish rhythmic juxtaposition of five, six, eight and nine beats to the bar are like rich layers of fabric sliding against each other. Swayne makes this seem effortless and smooth, and the Aeolian Harp is mysterious and ethereal. Kevin Malone’s (b.1958) Sudden Memorials is the most substantial work, at over half an hour across two movements. This was inspired by a visit to the temporary memorial at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, close to the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93. On a section of wire fence, visitors attached objects of remembrance in a spontaneous way. In this piece, Malone includes all kinds of musical quotations – there’s a high school basketball song, bits of jazz, boogie, gospel, hints of Debussy and Chopin, hymn tunes and even birdsong. These emerge from among crashing, highly virtuosic and resonant material, contrasting the simplicity of the memorial objects with the enormity of the event itself. It’s a visceral work, and Swayne’s performance here is totally captivating. Not an easy listen, it nevertheless grabs, even demands your attention throughout. Following the Malone, Swayne treats us to a remarkably tender and moving rendition of Scott Joplin’s Solace, before the collection concludes with David Del Tredici’s (b.1937) Missing Towers, which confronts the tragedy by focusing on the emptiness left by the towers’ collapse. A two-part canon circles, and a ringing pulse,
) London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Catherine LarsenMaguire, perform Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with Igor Tchetuev (piano) (3pm, Sun 28, Congress Theatre). Tickets: 01323 412000, www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk.
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