New organ recording by Robert Sholl from Métier

Métier Records, the new-music label of Divine Art Recordings, will be releasing many new titles in 2023, among them an organ recording of a rather unique nature!

Les ombres du Fantôme is a set of fourteen improvisations created by Robert Sholl and Justin Paterson that act as thematic shadows of Gaston Leroux’s novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (1910). They shadow the narrative, themes, characters and events of the book. The improvisations were recorded using the organs of Coventry and Arundel Cathedrals in July 2021, some with soprano and saxophone/bass clarinet. They use an invented musical language, and explore the acoustics of those buildings, the gesture and the materiality of the instruments in physical, spiritual and sonic space that is enhanced and extended (by Justin Paterson) through recording technology and electronic augmentations. 

Robert Sholl is a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music which is supporting this project, and both he and Justin Paterson also teach at the University of West London. The album will be scheduled for release in the first half of 2023 ((exact date to be advised).

Also find more information at https://www.phantomopera.co.uk/

Album Details

Title:  Les ombres du Fantôme  (Shadows of the Phantom)
Label : Métier
Catalogue number : MEX 77105
Tracks (all composed/improvised by Robert Sholl and Justin Paterson
with additional material by Anna McCready and Andy Visser):

1. The Ghost with the Death’s Head
2. You must love me’
3. The angels wept tonight
4. At the graveyard at Perros-Guirec
5. The enchanted violin: the resurrection of Lazarus
6. The Chandelier
7. Masked ball
8. Souterrain: ‘Everything that is underground belongs to him’
9. ‘I am Don Juan Triumphant’
10. Christine! Christine!
11. From the cellars to the house on the lake
12. In the torture chamber
13. La mort du Fantôme
14. Epilogue

Performers:

Robert Sholl (organ)
Anna McCready (soprano)
Andrew Visser (saxophone/bass clarinet)
Justin Paterson (electronic wizardry)

Recorded at Coventry and Arundel Cathedrals July 2021.
Producer: Justin Paterson
Recording Engineers Mike Exarchos (aka Stereo Mike) and Justin Paterson