Reviews

[Malone’s] music is riotous, a whirligig of discombobulatory fun. The more one hears this music, the more one is fascinated by it. This is a fascinating disc, evidence of Kevin Malone’s clear talent… a composer who has a clear vision of what he wants.. . a most impressive enterprise.

A good introduction to this Manchester-based American composer’s wide range, It is allusive, socially engaged music… sophisticated, witty and sometimes deeply moving. This enjoyable disc gives the listener much to think about.

What a CD for movie fans! Besides new ambitious chamber music, included in the recording are five songs written by Anthony Burgess for the Kubrick film ‘A Clockwork Orange’, masterworks of cabaret fiercely composed by Kevin Malone, recorded here for the first time – and which are crying out for the stage.

A tour de force by American mezzo Emily Howard who vocalizes in extraordinary ways. Malone’s music is surprisingly economical in its scoring.

A quartet of eclectic works from a talented composer who understands how to mix genres across the musical spectrum.

Painted in fairly broad strokes but certainly worth hearing

What we hear on these two discs is fluid, cogent, pianistically idiomatic, alternately energetic and lyrical, and just plain beautiful. The sureness of touch, variety of nuance, and impressive flexibility that Dullea brings to her gorgeously engineered performances reveal a deep level of commitment and care to Craven’s aesthetic

The surface lushness of Eric Craven’s harmonic language is offset by the discreet volatility of his structures. The challenge: to divine an overarching structural logic from out of those free-floating modules. Craven’s hall of mirrors is hallucinogenic.

This extremely appealing disc is the first devoted to the music of South African composer Robert Fokkens. it is clear that his identity as an African composer is very important to him, and there is certainly overt influence from traditional South African (especially Xhosa) music on his style. The main adjective that comes to mind when hearing Fokkens’s music is lucid—the pieces are nearly all very transparent in texture and harmony, and yet there is great personality and individuality in the writing. Several of the pieces make truly beau­tiful use of microtonal elements, within an accessible and luminous sound world. Each of the seven pieces has something striking and compelling about it. Though it’s still very early in the year, this terrific album is almost cer­tainly Want List material.

[This] new disc is everywhere infused with the spirit of [the composer’s] home country. The result is a musical surface full of capricious interest. There is never a hint of banality. Fokkens also extracts considerable traction out of seemingly unpromising musical ideas. A highly rewarding programme of music.

Fokkens’s well-defined compositional voice combines native South African with broader international musical concerns. Fokkens has been well served over the last decade by a growing number of performers and ensembles committed to his work, not least those represented on this disc, who offer here compelling, sympathetic accounts of his development in the field of chamber music.

[Robert Fokkens] acknowledges the debt of inspiration he owes to South Africa for his unique musical language which also benefits from other distinctly recognisable global trends, not least minimalism. His voice is in any event a mature and distinctive one, which deserves to be more widely heard. The compositions presented here are structurally compact, technically assured, with firm intellectual underpinning and possess a compelling communicative power. Members of the Fidelio Piano Trio provide the backbone to this excellent disc, and are joined by the soprano Patricia Rozario and the bass flute of Carla Rees; all of whom contribute committed performances throughout. This disc is immensely enjoyable and thought-provoking to listen to.

Whole concerts devoted to the music of one composer can be risky affairs: a cruel test of how mature and robust a composer is. In a concert devoted to the music of the South African composer Robert Fokkens, given by the Fidelio Trio and opening Cardiff University’s 2013/14 series, both composer and performers came through […]

Unknown Ground has been well described as ‘one of the most passionately unequivocal works in the Finnissy catalogue’. With the peerless Richard Jackson … subtly inflected melodic writing … These fine, lucidly recorded performances have been worth the wait.

The first piece on the record, Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of Judgement), is a direct refer­ence to the work of Kant. The harmonies are certainly not tonal, but neither are they dodecaphonic. One could hardly call this music over-written, but it is also far from a minimalist kind of aesthet­ic. It feels as though there is a mature restraint. [A Propos de Nice] has an anti-narrative struc­ture, fragmented and unnerving sometimes. One must come to terms with a moment-to-moment style of listening to appreciate its beauty. The title piece, Unknown Ground, is the high point of the album. It is a power­ful work by the English composer, played and sung with dedication. AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE CRITICS’ CHOICE 2013

Unknown Ground, completed in 1990, is as brutally down-to-earth as a song cycle can be… concerned with the anguish and suffering of gay men, with the spectre of AIDS a dreadful, Damoclean omnipresence. Even for Finnissy, always a fearless composer, it’s brave to explore musically words that are not merely tragic, but defeated. Yet their quietness intimates an all-powerful, boundless rage and fury that’s heartrendingly real and immediate and authentic and true. Richard Jackson’s performance is simply astonishing; the occasional resemblance of his voice to Peter Pears only adds extra emotional weight to the multiple layers of exposed, open wounds; and the New Music Players are impeccable in their understanding of when, and to what extent, to keep their distance. The other two works on the disc are non-vocal but equally substantial. it took ten years for this CD to see light of day, but it was worth the wait, a disc demonstrating both the rawness and convolution of Finnissy’s musical language.

Michael Finnissy has been served well by Divine Art. His sometimes simplistic, sometimes ultra-complex music tackles serious issues. Performances from the New Music Players under director Ed Hughes are all any composer could desire.

Kritik der Urteilskraft is all restraint and fabulously beautiful long textures,.Unknown Ground is a moving setting, the emphasis always on the text Aprpos de Nice provides an often-jaunty contrast to the other two pieces. It is not easy music to get to know, but it is worth the effort. For those unfamiliar with [Finnissy’s] language, the disc is a good place to start.

The sensation of being transported always amazed me… I could sit, relax and enjoy being taken through both familiar and unfamiliar places. When I listened to this album, something similar happened. Paying homage to his colleagues with wit, vivacity and musical irreverence, Schwartz combines quotes … Monteverdi, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Gershwin appear in active interaction, knitting into a continuous texture of cadences [in Memorial]. If you like journeys, you should listen to Tapestry. It will take you places.

Much of [Schwartz’s] music takes the form of collage in which he takes snippets of other composers’ works and weaves them into a well-made musical fabric by means of various techniques. His music may be one way that we unify the musical past with our own time. Schwartz’s compositions are surprisingly accessible. His textures are rich, his harmonies inventive, and every once in a while he includes a bit of humor. [Skaerved, Shorr & Johnson] have a great rapport and play wonderfully well together. The artistry of the British virtuoso string ensemble Longbow helps make [Water Music] a fitting finale for this well-put-together disc. The sound is clear and pleasant. Solo instruments are always heard to good advantage. I recommend this compact disc for anyone interested in 20th- and 21st- century music.