Kenneth Hesketh is now in his 45th year. It seems
remarkable for a composer of his standing that this is the first
commercially available CD wholly dedicated to his music. Yet,
true to the cliché of the proverbial London bus, we find that
a second disc of his work is about to be released hot on its
heels. As this review is being written, NMC has announced a
recording dedicated to Hesketh’s music for orchestra and large
ensemble.
In the meantime we have this collection of chamber works spanning
the years 1995 to 2007. It is played here with considerable
élan. This provides a fascinating window on the evolving direction
of the composer’s considerable output across more than a decade.
The earliest work, Aphorisms for solo clarinet was
originally written for Derek Bermel. Here it is played with
magnificent commitment and virtuosity by Psappha’s Dov Goldberg,
although not credited as such on the CD. It is a bold, gesturally
flamboyant set of five miniatures, each carrying a vivid performance
instruction such as Fantastico, Agitato and
Frenetico. They are all words that could equally be
applied to many passages in Hesketh’s works but here, scaled
down to a solitary unaccompanied instrument. The extremes of
emotion and expression that inhabit the music are hyper-exposed
in five dramatic, tersely pithy declamations united only by
an upwardly swooping chromatic gesture heard at the very beginning
and end.
Written for the Triolog Ensemble and premiered at the 2003 Munich
Biennale, Dei Destini Incrociati draws its structure
from the novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo
Calvino. The composer takes Calvino’s use of the Tarot as ‘story
telling machine’ as the basis for a twelve minute work that
is anchored around a number of cell-like motifs that manifest
themselves in differing ways. There’s a stuttering, mercurial
opening characterized by Hesketh’s acute and often beguiling
ear for colour and transparency. The effect overall is not unlike
walking around a maze, with a sense of déjà-vu often apparent
as glimpses of rhythmic figuration, melody and harmony leap
from the glisteningly nuanced textures.
Its brief sister work Fra Duri Scogli occupies rather
different if no less colourful territory. It takes as its starting
point a fifteenth century madrigal by Florentine abbot Don Paolo
di Firenze. This is fused and entwined with Hesketh’s own creative
DNA and the outcome is not unlike a more intensely dramatic
response to Oliver Knussen’s Music for a Puppet Court.
Hesketh originally conceived this piece and Dei Destini
Incrociati as a diptych.
Hesketh’s chamber opera The Overcoat (after Gogol)
has spawned several creative offshoots. These include the Three
Pieces in the Shape of a Shoe of 2005. Scored for clarinet,
cello and piano, the instrumental forces are exploited in an
extravagant and at times wildly extrovert fashion. Each of the
pieces - marked Agitato, Volutuoso, Allegro
Vivace, minacioso - provides an instrumental ‘commentary’
on Gogol’s chief protagonist Akaky Bashmakin. The biting, sarcasm-tinged
wit of much of the music remains prevalent throughout, effectively
condensing into microcosm much of the overall thrust and atmosphere
of the original operatic score.
Theatre of Attraction is the most recent and most substantial
work on the recording. It also exhibits the greatest shift in
Hesketh’s creative language over the span of the five works.
Whilst not completely absent, the mercurial elements of the
earlier works here give way to passages that although fantastically
scored, inhabit a more darkly-hued sound-world. Obsessive rhythms
are combined with immense elemental energy that spills over
into unbridled aggression and an manic sense of propulsion.
It’s an intensity that is clearly evident in the opening movement,
Time’s Music Box. From a quiet opening punctuated by
irregular cracks on wood-block, the music develops a latent,
bristling power that eventually winds down before the lid quietly
closes shut.
The contrast with the flickering, twilit colours of the central
dreamscape L’heure dorée in which alto flute floats
a haunting melodic strand over shifting underlying textures
could hardly be more marked. The final section, Marionette,
propels the work through a nightmarish, headlong dash that ultimately
finds an uneasy, threatening stillness fractured by screaming
instrumental exclamations.
Psappha’s playing under Nicholas Kok is emotionally compelling,
driven and utterly tuned into Hesketh’s creative aesthetic.
The disc as a whole provides an illuminating cross-section of
the composer’s chamber output.
Christopher Thomas
Psappha/Nicholas Kok