Ian WILSON (b.1964)
Re:play, for tenor saxophone, piano, double-bass and string quartet
(2007) [19:58]
Across a Clear Blue Sky - String Quartet no.10 (2009) [9:02]
Im Schatten - String Quartet no.11 (2010) [26:38]
Cathal Roche (saxophone); Hugh Tinney (piano); Malachy Robinson (double-bass);
RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet
rec. CIT Cork School of Music, Ireland, 8-9 April 2010. DDD
RIVERRUN RVRCD 82 [55:38] 
2011 is shaping up to be a good year for Irish composer Ian Wilson - four
of his orchestral works, including a violin concerto, were recently released
as Volume 5 of RTÉ Lyric FM's commendable 'Composers of Ireland' series -
see review.
This disc features two of Wilson's latest string quartets; the first six are
also available on CD - see reviews here
and here.
His newest quartet, no.12, was premiered in London this April.
Wilson has a habit, not entirely useful or endearing, of giving his works
quirky/zany titles which often border on the pretentious, sometimes involving
'arty' or random punctuation: re:play, for example, sports a colon
and a cummingsian non-capital initial. Other titles include …wander,
darkling, Mais quand elle sourit… sKiPpY and Licht/ung.
All of this is pardonable, naturally, if the work is good enough, and in general
Wilson writes imaginative, expressive music that may sometimes cede little
ground to tonality or melody, but whose visceral excitement yields its own
rewards with patience. Nevertheless, the three works on this CD are more of
a mixed bag.
The opening minute or two of re:play may cause a momentary loss of
orientation - the listener may well feel dropped into an 1960s underground
jazz club, with the improvising saxophone, double bass and piano doing all
the initial running in a piece that, according to the notes, "articulates
that dialogue [...] between the jazz and classical worlds". Though objectively
a fairly listener-friendly work, Re:play has positioned itself in an
awkward no-man's-land between those two realms - there is perhaps altogether
too much jazz for art music fans to feel entirely comfortable, and too much
of a 'classical' vibe to appeal other than fleetingly to jazz cognoscenti.
Though no hawker of crossover fluff, Wilson undeniably inhabits the fashionable
quarters of 'new music', and it may well be that this work was written with
the trendy post-modern audience in mind, with its known propensity for category
fusion.
Across a Clear Blue Sky was commissioned by RTÉ to mark Seamus Heaney's
70th birthday. The title comes from the first line of the second stanza of
Heaney's 2004 poem 'Anything Can Happen', though musically is unrelated. Wilson's
score includes an eyebrow-raising "two portable analogue radios and four
drumming toys". The piece begins with the static of an FM radio that
is then retuned a few times, before the proper music arrives on whining strings.
What the point of this introduction is remains unclear - the abstruse notes
throw little light on the matter. The radio announcer clearly mentions the
ubiquitous US pop 'icon' known as Lady Gaga - perhaps Wilson wants to show
that he is au courant with the latest modes from the pop world, or
maybe he wishes to date-stamp his piece. Dates of works, incidentally, are
not given anywhere in the booklet - those listed above have come from Wilson's
website.
About three-quarters of the way through Across a Clear Blue Sky, after
several fairly abrasive minutes of glissandi, furious bowing and pungent chords,
the static and radio tuning return while the soloists almost sheepishly play
on. This may have seemed a trendy thing to do at the time, but Wilson is probably
going to want rewrite this in ten or twenty years to rescue the interesting
music from the blandness of it. The arrival of some wind-up toys at the end
does not have the same annoyance factor, but the wrong-mindedness of the radio
interference is encapsulated by the producer's need to fade down the static
to silence in order to finish the work.
Im Schatten, Wilson's eleventh string quartet, is a considerably more
substantial work, and thankfully the score sticks to traditional parts. As
the notes put it: "As though in a hall of mirrors, the original violin
line is heard in multiple distorted and fragmented versions of itself, such
that it almost becomes overwhelmed by its own reflections. Subject and shadow
become interchangeable: we are back to the blurring of reality and apparition."
Im Schatten is a slow-moving, sparse work, full of low-profile fits
and starts, not self-evidently structured or directional. Given its length,
the listener accustomed to the string quartets of Beethoven, Shostakovich
or even Webern is likely to find this long-winded and heavy-going, at least
at first listen. Yet there are snippets of melody, and few segments that would
surprise Schoenberg, Bartók or Janáček - it is simply that the totality
is quite different.
Opinions will thus vary as to the profundity or interest of Wilson's works
on this recording. There is no doubting the fine performances on offer, particularly
by the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet, who make their way with great composure through
the nuances, subtleties and technical difficulties of Wilson's string writing.
Sound quality is very good indeed.
As far as the booklet notes go, Tim Rutherford-Johnson seems to be under the
illusion that he was writing them for a sociology symposium, such is the level
of linguistic and cultural affectation. Of Across a Clear Blue Sky,
for example, he writes: "Wilson's materials - almost 'readymades' - have
been so purged of content that juxtaposition, the touching of one surface
upon another [sic], is almost all that is left. The different regions of sound
are shadow-like: they convey an absence, yet when they touch and intersect
- like the light sculptures of László Moholy-Nagy - forms, textures, presence."
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk
The nuances, subtleties and technical difficulties of Wilson's string writing.