Thomas HEWITT JONES
Oculi Omnium (2010) [2:33]
Spirits of the Night - Shades of Grief (2010) [6:39]
Carnival (2010) [3:18]
Lady of the Lake - suite from the ballet (2010) [29:57]
Two Anthems (2011): Lead Me O Lord [2:50]; Drop Drop Slow Tears
[2:41]
Sonata Cimarella for oboe and piano (2011) [8:41]
What Child is This? [3:49]
Voces 8 (Andrea Haines, Emily Dickens (soprano); Christopher Wardle, Barnaby
Smith (counter-tenors); Charles MacDougall, Robert Smith (tenor); Paul Smith
(baritone); Dingle Yandell (bass))
James Turnbull (oboe)
Eleanor Turner (harp)
Chamber Orchestra of London/composer
rec. no dates given, London. DDD
VIVUM VR37603 [60:15] 
In 2003 Thomas Hewitt Jones was BBC Young Composer of the Year. Since then
his profile has been low but going by this CD he has been far from unproductive.
He has, to our benefit, stuck with composition especially in the fields of
concert and commercial music.
After the sugary balance and sincerity of Oculi Omnium from a rather
Swingle II-sounding Voces 8 we move to the solo harp and Spirits of the
Night - Shades of Grief. It's a work that was written for, edited by and
premiered by Eleanor Turner who introduced it on 30 January 2010 in Italy.
For those steeped in British music its richly tapestried progress sounds quite
like Bax mixed with the bardic associations inextricably bound up with the
instrument. Delicacy is a given but so is the finery of drama and beauty.
It's a work fully worthy to stand alongside the Grace Williams Hiraeth
and William Mathias's Sonata.
There are euphoric facets to the harp work and they are a yet more candid
presence in the New Agey and bouncingly feel-good Carnival
for organ. It has all the marks of a British festival concert overture
lacking only orchestration. We then have ten movements of the ballet Lady
of the Lake. Thudding foot-tapping Graingerian jigs blend with minimalistic
insistence straight out of the Nyman glossary. Howells-like pastorals appear
with tangy harmonies. There's a gracious Rota-like canto, a dreamy flute-dominated
movement, The Christening and a regretfully melancholic The Lady
Returns. Some of the tracks in the closely recorded ballet suite are unpolished
in the sense that editing has left in a speck of a word or a tuning or echo
sound.
The Two Anthems: Lead Me O Lord and Drop
Drop Slow Tears are broadly and sweetly in the Howells camp. The final
piece on the disc is the carol What Child Is This? It has a
golden melody which fleeting shares Finzi's topography; very much in the English
lyrical tradition. All three really deserve to be taken up by cathedral choirs
and as test-pieces for choral competitions. They are winningly written and
recorded with breathy proximity.
The Sonata Cimarella is a mercurial humming-bird of a summer
piece. Its hovering and lyrical career is both charming and touching.
On the down side the gaps between tracks are sometimes too short. We need
time to collect our thoughts. The sung words are not printed in the somewhat
frugal leaflet.
I wonder what happened to the Court Lane CD promised a few years ago. It was
to have included Hewitt Jones’s Child of the Stable's Secret Birth [2:49],
Under Milk Wood Ballet Suite (2008) [29:05], Four Piano Miniatures
[10:03], String Music [12:10] and Fantasy for small ensemble [6:16].
You can read more about this composer at www.thomashewittjones.com.
For now this serves as a persuasive sampler of the music of Thomas Hewitt
Jones. More would be very far from unwelcome.
Rob Barnett
A persuasive sampler of the music of Thomas Hewitt Jones. More would be very
far from unwelcome.