Nicola LeFANU (b. 1947)
The Hidden Landscape (1973) [22:39]
Columbia Falls (1975) [18:58]
Threnody (2014) [6:54]
The Crimson Bird (2017) [27:49]
Rachel Nicholls (soprano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Norman Del Mar (Landscape), Ilan Volkov (Bird)
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra/Colman Pearce (Columbia), Gavin Maloney (Threnody)
Rec. 1973-2017
NMC D255 [76:28]
There does not seem to be that much of Nicola LeFanu’s music available. This seems to be only the second disc solely dedicated to her music, the other being an enterprising and entertaining recording of chamber works on Naxos (8.557389); otherwise, her works appear singly on compilation discs, often with music by her mother Elizabeth Maconchy and even her cousin Giles Swayne - a musical family indeed. There are some interesting works to be found amongst those issues, my personal favourite being The Old Woman of Beare, which features on a Lorelt celebration of British women composers (LNT101).
This recording offers a good retrospective of LeFanu’s music, spanning nearly fifty years of productivity. However, I would have liked to see something from the middle period as there are nearly forty years between the second and third works on the disc. It opens with a live Proms performance of The Hidden Landscape in a stunning performance under Norman Del Mar. The excellent remastering means you can hardly tell that it is live, even during the slow, quiet introduction to the work. As it progresses, it becomes more agitated, with brash brass tuttis and almost violent percussive entries as it reaches its climax. It is a very interesting work which reflects the period in which it was composed - a splendid opener.
Composed a couple of years later, Columbia Falls has a different feeling to it. Its broad sweep would work well as background music to a documentary or film, to depict the wilderness of the great plains with the mountains in the distance. It is a piece of mixed emotions, which manages to hold your interest throughout its nineteen minutes - a real gem. Colman Pearce and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra give a committed and assured performance; I don’t think you could ask for more.
The orchestra shines again under Gavin Maloney in the shorter and more intense Threnody. It dates from 2014, providing evidence of a development of LeFanu’s style, displaying a fluency which reflects her growing orchestral pallet. Based on Brendan Kelly’s The Trojan Women, this strongly emotional work packs a lot into its seven minutes.
The final work, The Crimson Bird, is the most recent. It is a series of four songs on difficult and complex texts from ‘Siege’ by John Fuller, revolving around the relationship between a mother and her son during a period of conflict, which deserve and receive deeply moving music. This is a twenty-eight-minute emotional rollercoaster, which is at times quite harrowing, but also very rewarding. Rachel Nicholls’ voice squeezes every ounce of emotion out of the songs, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov provide a very persuasive performance.
These four works are given convincing and committed performances which do justice to this underrated composer and afford the listener a wonderful opportunity to hear the colour and style of her orchestral music. The sound is very good and the booklet notes include a detailed introduction by Kate Romano and incisive program notes by LeFanu herself on each of the four pieces recorded here. I hope that this is just the first of a series of discs dedicated to exploring her music.
Stuart Sillitoe
Recording Details
The Hidden Landscape
7 August 1973, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, England
Columbia Falls
13 January 2015, National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland
Threnody
19 September 1997, National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland
The Crimson Bird
17 February 2017, The Barbican, London, England
