Eve de CASTRO ROBINSON
Other Echoes (1999)
Triple Clarinet Concerto (1991)
Pendulums of Blue (1999)
Noah's Ark (1991)
Auckland Philharmonia/Nicolas
Braithwaite (Echoes); John Hopkins (Concerto)
NZSO/Matthias Bamert (Pendulums);
Ensemble Philharmonia/John Elmsly (Noah's Ark)
ATOLL ACD300
[58.50]
The CD leaflets from Atoll are not too good at providing you with information.
Their design is to the highest standards but go looking for some biographical
information about the composer and you look in vain.
Other Echoes is a work of flighty modernism, Ariel careering around
the skies with hints of Pettersson, Messiaen, Rautavaara (those arctic birds
are very familiar) and Turnage. The hints of unabashed modernism and fragmented
lyricism spread their wings wide in the texture-clear and incident-rich six
movement clarinet concerto. Such is the style that it would pair happily
with the Thea Musgrave Concerto and with Harrison Birtwistle. Castro Robinson
is no neo-romantic, that is for sure, and the evidence for this is clear
also from Pendulums of Blue and Noah's Ark with the latter's
bird calls (familiar from Other Echoes), elephant trumpetings, gall-bitter
humour, lumbering tramp and parody (how many of the quotes can you recognise?).
Well recorded and enterprising stuff.
Rob Barnett
In case of difficulty available from
Atoll ltd, PO Box 99039, Newmarket, Auckland, New Zealand.
www.atoll.co.nz
atoll@atoll.co.nz
