www.jansmusic.co.uk - for musical independence

Click here to review the contents of your basket or check out

Back to LIR listings

JANSMUSIC RECOMMENDED RECORDING

LIR003
New Music Players
Crying Bird, Echoing Star

James Wood: Crying bird, echoing star / Gordon McPherson: Explore yourself / Edward Dudley Hughes: The Sibyl of Cumae / Rowland Sutherland: Timeless Odyssey / Rolf Hind: The Horse Sacrifice

This is the 3rd CD on my own label London Independent Records, and one that is incredibly exciting, not just because of the quality of the recording and performance,
but because it features new works from five young stars of the British music scene.  

James Wood's work explores birdsong in really quite realistic way, and he even goes as far as naming the different bird calls in the booklet notes, which I think is a lovely touch.  It's a very lively work - jazzy and fresh. Gordon McPherson's piece, which is a call to young composers to explore themselves, is frantic and furious, seemingly chaotic lines flying about, with an energy reminiscent of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" - quite fabulous.  

Edward Dudley Hughes has worked with poet Tom Lowenstein on a setting of his work "The Sibyl of Cumae" which is eerie in places, conjuring up the spiritual and unfathomable world of the ancient Gods. There is some impressive singing from mezzo Louise Mott against an undulating instrumental background, and some nice dialogue between the different solo lines, and a simply wonderful portrayal of madness. This is like watching an opera unfold without having the stage in front of you.

Rowland Sutherland's work "Timeless Odyssey" is an entertaining mixture of jazz and oriental sounds, with flamenco thrown in for good measure. Rolf Hind is of course more well-known for his playing than for his compositions, but hopefully we will hear more of his writing in the future - this is a very dramatic work, portraying a gruesome ceremony, the sacrifice of a horse, with some quite violent writing. He uses the cello as the sacrificial victim, played in different ways in each movement to reflect a different character aspect - some lovely writing in the second movement with a nice mix of simple melodic lines and more angular pizzicato writing.

Listen to extracts of the CD (these are short mp3 files):

Crying Bird, Echoing Star         The Horse Sacrifice          The Sibyl of Cumae          Explore yourself