Philip G.W. HENDERSON (b. 1948)
The Magic Wood, for ten solo strings [19:15]
The Hop-picker’s Daughter, for string quartet [17:35]
The Philip
Henderson Ensemble/Philip Henderson
rec. 2010/2011 MBJ Studios, London
PRIVATE CD [36:53] 
This CD arrives in a card without notes beyond a running track and some attractive
black and white artwork (availability).
It houses two string works by Philip G W Henderson. Googling reveals that
the composer was a member of the band of the Grenadier Guards in the early
1960s. He has written extensively for stage productions and for the radio,
and has had a long running association with Steve Hackett of Genesis. Film
has also claimed his interest, and there is indeed something filmic and immediately
appealing about both these works.
The Magic Wood is for ten solo strings, and in five brief movements.
It was ‘inspired by the woodland that surrounds the composer’s home in Yorkshire’
according to his brief note. One thinks at first that the idiom is akin to,
say, Robin Milford, but its freshness soon burgeons into a lissom, rather
folk-ish minimalism. By Night has some, some tick-tocking stasis, also
hints that Henderson knows his Janáček in the nicely jagged rhythms he
employs. His accelerandi are exciting. Dream Dance has quietly musing
strings, temolandi acting as a cushion for the turning and twisting folk voicings
of the solo string that acts as master of ceremonies in the dream, but hushed
intensity and expectation slowly gives way to a more protean power in the
strings. Song of the trees shivers and sways, thinning to single voices,
sounding rather filmic, whilst After Rainfall opens with flip-flop
pizzicato, ending freshly.
There is some Steve Reich-cum-Nyman influence maybe, in the companion work,
The Hop-picker’s Daughter, written for string quartet in which we are
in ‘a hop field in Kent during the mid-1950s. A little girl befriends a little
boy and their afternoon of fun begins ...’ Lyricism is verdant in the first
movement, albeit the theme is repeated amongst the voices insistently, though
matters are varied timbrally in the B section. The second movement gets off
to baroque dance rhythms. The solos embarked on first by viola and then cello
are strongly reminiscent of cod-Handelian figures, but there are also calming
episodes. The finale is a jolly sectional affair, opening with folk song-like
freshness, and gradually we wind down to a final full stop pizzicato. The
afternoon narrative is over.
I assume that both works were recently written. I do know that they are both
published by Edition Peters.
[Editor’s Note: Mr Henderson wrote the 2005 West End musical, The Far Pavilions]
Jonathan Woolf
Something filmic and immediately appealing about this music.