There is no denying
the life force that courses through
the veins and arteries of McCabe's music.
Take the 25 minute
suite that McCabe and the conductor
Christopher Austin made from McCabe's
ballet Arthur Pendragon. It's
the first of two full-length ballets
on the Arthur legends. Uther and
the Tribes is volcanic in its energy,
conveying the barbarity of the early
Britons. The transparently orchestrated
music heaves with a clashing energy
that may recall Mathias and even Malcolm
Arnold at times. McCabe shows true mastery
in the quietly whining wails of the
flutes in Igraine and Uther and
then follows it with a long Baxian melody
of great and grand measure and an urgent
refrain that emulates RVW; a remarkable
piece of music. In The Tourney we
return to the style of the first movement
but with a clear Tippett-like creative
urgency. In the finale The Lovers
- this time the tragic Guinevere and
Lancelot - McCabe has written deeply
touching melodic music with the cantilena
release of the middle movements of Tippett's
Triple Concerto and Concerto for Double
String Orchestra. Also bearing the Tippett
stigmata are the sickle-edged urgent
chiming music for harp, piano and a
skein of solo strings. The full ballet
was premiered in January 2000.
The Piano Concerto
No. 1 was written for the Southport
Centenary Festival 1967, up the road
from McCabe's native Liverpool. There
is a long, quiet, bass-tense and musingly
dissonant introductory Largo with confidingly
glittering work for the piano. Fairy
bell chimes enter towards the movement's
end in which the piano and orchestra
rise to discordant insistent assertiveness
before a fading down into the subdued
music of the opening. After a second
or so the explosively rippling two minute
second movement arrives; no repose here
amid echoes of Stravinsky and RVW. The
long third movement goes through various
transformations from bleakly icy Antarctic
Lento to an argumentative and irritable
Allegretto redolent of Malcolm Arnold
in the Sixth Symphony. We also encounter
a jazzy angry Maestoso and a cold reflective
realm. The finale has something f the
angular celebratory chiming joyousness
and jazz of the piano concertos of Malcolm
Williamson and the orchestral works
of William Mathias.
Pilgrim for
double string orchestra joins the great
heritage of British works for massed
strings. The inspiration lies in Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress. It started
life as a String Sextet premiered in
Luton in 1997 but was then reworked
in 1998 for a premiere by Christopher
Austin and the Brunel Ensemble in 1999.
A single very substantial movement,
it's a troubled piece with a faintly
Bartókian accent. It makes full
use of every aspect of the orchestra
and in its quick pizzicato at 2:40 seems
to recall RVW's Tallis Fantasia.
We may also discern the sterner regret
inherent in the symphonic string writing
of Roy Harris and the euphoria of Tippett
in the Double Concerto (5:00). The music
and recording make good use of the antiphonal
layout. Throughout, as at 8.30, creaking
little violin voices claw their way
to the top as they do at the very start.
The work ends in a warm humming haze
with those ecstatic solo voices trilling
in finesse.
John McCabe is a powerhouse
on the British music scene. New symphonies
keep emerging and one (Labyrinth)
is due to be premiered in Liverpool
later this year (2007).
Dutton have several
McCabe discs and we must hope for more.
Meantime do not forget DUNELM RECORDS
DRD 0148 (Symphony 4 review)
DUTTON CDLX 7125 (chamber music played
by Fibonacci Sequence review)
and CDLX 7133 (Piano Concerto No. 2
and other works). There are also significant
recordings on Hyperion and on ClassicO
(Concerto for Orchestra).
Rob Barnett
John McCabe (piano) 
