Joe CUTLER (b. 1968)
Elsewhereness (2018) [8:40]
McNulty (2016) [10:29]
For Frederic Lagnau (2013) [7:00]
Akhmatova Fragments (2008) [14:26]
Sikorski B (2007) [7:11]
Karembeu’s Guide to the Complete Defensive Midfielder (2015) [12:07]
Iain Ballamy (saxophone)
Sarah Leonard (soprano)
Workers Union Ensemble
Fidelio Trio
Noszferatu
Emulsion Sinfonietta
Project Instrumental/Daniele Rosina
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra/Mirga Gražinytè-Tyla
rec. 2008-18, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Text included
NMC D246 [59:53]
Joe Cutler was born in London, studied in, among other places, Poland and worked in the Netherlands before joining the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire where he is now Professor of Composition. Like my colleague Tony Haywood, I greatly enjoyed his previous recording for NMC, Bartlebooth (review), but that was over ten years ago so I was glad to catch up with some of his more recent works.
If you want a general idea of what his music is like, I would compare him with John Adams. Like Adams he has taken a good deal from minimalism, without quite being a hard-core minimalist like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. He likes driving, propulsive rhythms, and he also likes floating a very long lyrical line above them. He likes repeating and developing very short ideas. He likes non-standard groupings of instruments. And he likes jokey titles which take some explaining. However, he is his own man: his harmony is quite unlike that of Adams and he has an abiding interest in jazz, which comes out in the some of the works here.
Elsewhereness is a curtain raiser. It is a jolly, rhythmic and brassy piece, rather in the manner of Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine. A kind of high hallooing appears at one point and there are some complex counter-rhythms on percussion. It would be an aggressive work were it not so cheerful, indeed cheery. The dynamic Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, a real ball of fire of a conductor, leads the proceedings with a will. I greatly enjoyed this.
McNulty, for piano trio, is named for a character of that name in The Wire, an American television series. Not having seen it, I cannot comment on its appropriateness. It begins as an exercise in minimalism with an Irish jig as the theme – apparently Cutler played the violin in Irish traditional music some years ago. There is a gentle middle section where the violin soars over rippling piano passages – a kind of texture Cutler likes. There are some haunting moments before the end.
Frederic Lagnau was a French minimalist composer, much influenced by Steve Reich, who died some years ago. Cutler got to know him when they were both at Darmstadt, that home of experimental music. His tribute to Lagnau is for a small ensemble, which nevertheless needs a conductor. It consists of a number of short sections within a setting which begins and ends with a chorale-like keyboard theme. The piece stops suddenly, which seems appropriate, as Lagnau died at the age of only 43.
The Akhmatova Fragments set four short passages from the Russian poet in D. M. Thomas’s English translations for voice and string ensemble. Before these is a purely instrumental opening. The songs are set for high soprano, handled with great aplomb and what sounds like superb accuracy by Sarah Leonard. She is an old hand at Cutler’s music, having premiered and recorded his In Praise of Dreams, on the Bartlebooth CD. Her first song is minimalist and rhythmical; the second slow and dreamy; in the third the soprano’s long floating line is underpinned by a bouncy pizzicato accompaniment. The fourth is much the longest and features a long line over slow dragging chords. This is a considerable work, with all jokiness set aside.
Sikorski B is the second piece Cutler has written in homage to the Polish composer Tomasz Sikorski, hence, I think, the title. It is for saxophone and piano with percussion. The piano begins with ripping passages with a pronounced Scriabinesque flavour, over which the saxophone has some haunting and repeated phrases. Then the saxophone explodes in a short passage into high and raucous noises. In the final section the piano offers a sequence of chords while the saxophone shows off some extremely high and squeaky screeches. This is a very odd piece.
Finally, we have Karembeu’s Guide to the Complete Defensive Midfielder. Karembeu turns out to be a footballer, which will explain the title to those in the know. This is a jolly, varied piece which begins with a series of dances, rather suggesting to me the dances in Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale. A solo saxophone (Iain Bellamy) has an important role, which sounds in places like jazz improvisation – I don’t know whether the part is really improvised there or carefully written out. No conductor is credited but Cutler himself plays the keyboard, so no doubt he kept the proceedings in hand. The booklet explains that the piece as a whole is carefully constructed but I have to say I couldn’t hear it, and it sounded to me rather unfocused. A pity, since it is obviously intended to be the climax of the disc.
The performances are secure and accomplished. I found the recording rather close, with a very wide stereo spread, and it took a little fiddling with the controls to get the best effect. The booklet, in English only, is helpful but discusses the pieces in a different order from that on the disc and is very light on dates. The English words of the Akhmatova Fragments are included. There are acknowledgements to the Composers’ Fund, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Delius Trust and the RVW Trust for supporting the recording. Cutler is a composer well worth exploring.
Stephen Barber
