CLASSICAL NOTES

By Nick Boston

REVIEWS

Dave Flynn Irish Minimalism (First Hand Records FHR116).

Irish composer Dave Flynn (b.1977) works across classical, Irish folk, jazz and rock genres. His album Irish Minimalism explores his particular take on a composition style largely associated with American composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass. He maintains that some of minimalism’s key features, such as repetition and gradual incremental changes, all fit well in an Irish traditional musical context.

The Cranning, a string quartet played by the ConTempo Quartet, has an arrestingly jagged opening, and complex dancing cross-rhythms abound. Drone effects with quiet chords building up and gently sliding from one to another are reminiscent of the pipes to come in other works here, and Donegal dance music combines with Afro-Cuban and Malian rhythms.

The Keening is also played by the ConTempo Quartet, and as the name would suggest, is more anguished, with its mysterious, murmuring opening, glassy string sounds and cello slides, all building through hypnotic keening to distressed, screeching high violins. Following 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 the quartets this addition makes perfect sense, building on his use of drones, lilting lines and twisting and turning melodic catches. The final work here, Stories from the Old World, presents the stories with Breanndán Begley’s soft and warm local Kerry Gaelic dialect (translations provided in the notes), mostly recited over simple and light accompaniment with occasional pizzicato or glassy interjections.

The stories once told, the musicians take over with lively 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 to finish. A thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating collection of works, effectively demonstrating the remarkable closeness of two seemingly unrelated musical traditions.

Adam Swayne 9/11:20 Memorials on the 20th anniversary of September 11th (Coviello Classics COV92111).

I reviewed pianist Adam Swayne’s first solo recording back in 2019, and was impressed then by his phenomenal technique but also his thought-provoking choice of repertoire. He’s back, and this time with even more challenging repertoire, both technically and emotionally. The album delves into how art, and particularly music, can attempt to commemorate such a 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, 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

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).

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.

London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Catherine Larsen- Maguire, 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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