Christopher Wright here presents his calling card as a composer
for the orchestra. His chamber and human voice aspects can be
sampled on a Merlin Classics disc MRFD070914 – also reviewed
here.
Dutton have done him proud both as to documentation and in providing
a generous selection from his catalogue. His
A Spring Overture
- a modesty there - bustles yet is shot through with silverpoints
and the gleam of crystal. It was inspired by Walton's
Portsmouth
Point but also seems to reference the open-air Copland of
the
Outdoor Overture. The four movement
A Little Light
Music acts the part with singing energy and moody inwardness.
It references the great English string tradition from Elgar to
Parry to Purcell to Vaughan Williams and Tippett. It's a luminous
work full of inventive touches to tickle and flatter the ear.
The
Threnody for orchestra was one of three works written
circa 2002. All were affected by the composer coming to terms
with his mother's death. The other two are the
Four Meditations
on the Merlin disc and
In Memoriam for chorus and orchestra
– which I have not heard but would like to. The
Threnody is
by no means all sorrow. There is anger here too of the sort that
bellows out in the Finzi Cello Concerto tuttis and there’s considerable
eloquence too. It's a very powerful and deeply moving work. As
Wordsworth said - and Finzi through Wordsworth – the
Threnody
speaks of "thoughts too deep for tears". The music
is broadly within the ‘church’ of Howells and Hadley. My attention
was held throughout.
Searching for cor anglais and strings
explores another potent theme for modern times: the composer addresses
a world bereft of stillness and security in which activity blots
out reality and travel fills the need for escape from self. The
sorrowing cor anglais meanders and reflects until the music sinks
into a querulous rest. The final pages have the gleam of the violins
fading … fading. The
Idyll for small orchestra is the third
of three ten minute orchestral essays. It is the most strongly
keyed into the English musical tradition with a distinct Finzian
mien redolent somewhat of the
Severn Rhapsody. The
Divertimento
throws aside drowsy pastoral visions with bubbling and witty
playing of that one man dynamo of the British recorder repertoire
John Turner. It's a wonderfully vivacious work in three sections
laid out as a single track. The
Capriccio Burlesque for
strings takes us back to the bustling world of
A Little Light
Music and
A Spring Overture. It's again in the
grand English tradition yet adds valuably to it rather than being
in thrall to its greatest monuments.
The disc is well documented and very attentively recorded.
I hope there will be more from Christopher wright. For now what
we have here speaks from lush English pastures - landscapes and,
more to the point, mindscapes. There is nothing wrong with light
music and some of these works fit that label but other things
such as
Searching and the
Threnody are much, much
more.
Rob Barnett
Maxwell Spiers (cor anglais)d; John Turner (treble recorder)f
