New Album of Music for Small Orchestra from Composer Ed Hughes

Metier Records, a division of the Divine Art Recordings Group, will be releasing a new album of music by Sussex (England) based composer Ed Hughes. This will be Hughes’s fourth album for Metier in a series which includes an opera (CD/DVD set), a DVD of silent films with new music by Hughes, and a highly acclaimed double album of chamber works.

The new album contains three works: Sinfonia and Cuckmere: A Portrait for chamber orchestra, and a piano trio – Media Vita.

Ed Hughes writes music which can be very lyrical with long lines, and yet also polyphonic – sometimes dense, and sometimes translucent. Very characteristic is that things go in and out of focus, so you hear different things at different times, flowing in and out. There’s always a sense of forward momentum in that the music is constantly on a journey. A definite sense of momentum and energy. You are left wanting more. It resists definition! Sinfonia explores violent extremes of emotion ranging from anguished and desperate states, to the serene, with hints of early music. Whereas Cuckmere is often really gentle – the beginning of Spring is fleet of foot and light, whereas Summer has this amazing warmth and richness to the textures, which is a big contrast to the brittle shards of Winter. And the windswept Autumnal textures. Overall the album is a portrait, unified stylistically, even though the pieces exhibit many contrasts. (comments by Liz Webb)

Ed Hughes says: “My new CD features the most amazing performances of my music by the New Music Players and the Orchestra of Sound and Light brilliantly recorded and mixed by Simon Weir and the Classical Media Company.

“The CD opens with Cuckmere: A Portrait. A four movement piece evoking the journey of the Cuckmere river, this is also a journey through the seasons. So it is an exploration of time and space. It has a changing texture, even though the work is a continuous play, because there are a prelude and three interludes introducing and connecting the four main movements. Using the resources of a small orchestra and electronics I try to create a sense of spaciousness, cold, warmth, beauty, scale, and the drama of the environment conjured in Cesca Eaton’s film, for which this piece was originally conceived as part of a major 2018 Brighton Festival immersive commission.* I did this through searching melodies, changing harmonies, shifting string colours, blocks of wind and brass, and the strangeness you get when the landscape is transformed through snow and ice conveyed through ‘on the bridge’ string effects, and the occasional addition of electronics in the interludes.

“Media Vita is the piano trio which goes back to my first professional compositions. I am fond of it because it freely explores the intense harmonies of an early motet – John Sheppard’s Media Vita (c. 1550) with its exquisite harmonic progressions and expressive melodies. I transform this into quite a bold and searching piece for piano trio.

“The final piece is called Sinfonia (2018) – it links to Media Vita (1991) because more than 25 years on from Media Vita it’s a return to the idea of trying to get under the skin of early English music. But this time in a sort of chronological survey of music composed between 1415 and c. 1600 using pieces originally concerned with war, passion, the human spirit, death, environmental disaster and the sounds of the city… all these different mixed elements from an early period. I’m trying to transform them into a statement that’s more about today than yesterday, through this large scale ensemble piece, Sinfonia.”

Ed Hughes: Sinfonia (Métier MSV 28597)

Coming Spring 2020

Recorded by Simon Weir (Classical Media) in 2018.

Works & Performers:

• Sinfonia – Featuring the New Music Players conducted by Ed Hughes
• Cuckmere: A Portrait – Featuring the Orchestra of Sound and Light conducted by Nicholas Smith
• Media Vita – Featuring Susanne Stanzeleit (violin), Joe Giddey (cello), Richard Casey (piano)

Ed Hughes Recordings on Métier