BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, London Sinfonietta, Ryan Wigglesworth, Huw Wa
Release Date: 19 April 2024
Label: NMC Recordings
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 5023363027724
Genres: Classical
Description
Michael Zev Gordon is a composer whose music is deeply engaged with the subjects of memory and loss. These themes are central to the three large-scale works which comprise this new portrait album, named The Impermanence of Things.
The album opens with a seven-movement orchestral work performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jukka Pekka Saraste, which explores our awareness of the passing of time. Time pushes on, time pulls back, before seeming to stand still completely as we journey towards the end of the work. The final movement shares its name with the overall title – Bohortha – which is a tiny village lying at the end of a remote Cornish peninsula, an evocative symbol of open-endedness.
If Bohortha consists of many small, contrasting fragments, the Violin Concerto is constructed more conventionally, with both the work's structure and expressive character being influenced by early exploratory sessions with the soloist, Carolin Widmann. Gordon has commented that he was inspired by 'just how many nuances of singing she could bring to her instrument: intense and open, strained and fragile'. Lyrical melodies collide with dissonant clusters in this recording by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Catherine Larsen-Maguire.
Conventions are again turned on their head in The Impermanence of Things for piano (Huw Watkins), ensemble (London Sinfonietta) and electronics. Rather than playing the traditional soloist role, the piano instead acts as a linchpin, around which thirteen short movements revolve. Throughout the work, a constant tension between forward and backward, reveals an ultimate yearning for stillness in the present.
Gordon has been the recipient of the Prix Italia, and two British Composer Awards. Two previous portrait discs – On Memory (NMC D144) and In the Middle of Things – were both in The Times' '100 Best Albums of the Year' lists.
"Watkins is quicksilver in his switching of personality and tone, the Sinfonietta razor sharp in their interjections, with the electronics contributing a kaleidoscopic sheen." – The Arts Desk
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE – CONCERTO CHOICE, JUNE 2024
"there is always much to listen to in the kaleidoscopic scoring, expertly realised by Sarasate and the BBC Symphony. […] utterly gripping." – BBC Music Magazine *****
"For a composer of modernist predispositions, there is an almost experimental quality to the fervent rhetoric of shifting moods and colours here, and more than enough energy and animation to make the possible future release of recordings of Zev Gordon's music since 2017 an appealing prospect." – Gramophone
Tracklisting
Martyn Brabbins, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers
Martyn Brabbins, Daniel Pioro, Anna Dennis, Andrew Gourlay, Elena Schwarz
Freya Waley-Cohen, Manchester Collective, Heloise Werner, Katie Bray, Fleur Barron, Tamsin Waley-Co
Slide Action
Siwan Rhys
BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, Alice Farnham
Lisa Illean, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, GBSR Duo, Juliet Fraser, Explore Ensemble
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins, Andrew Davis
