Ian WILSON (b. 1964)
Stations (2006/7)
Matthew Schellhorn (piano)
rec. Curtis Auditorium, CIT Cork School of Music, 1-3 June 2011
DIATRIBE RECORDINGS DIACD016 [72:41]
Ian Wilson's large-scale piano cycle Stations
is a substantial span of music playing for over seventy minutes. It is based
on rather than inspired by the Fourteen Stations of the Cross: from Christ's
condemnation by Pilate to his burial in the tomb. This long work is arranged
into four books that may be performed separately although the real impact
is when played as a single unit.
In this work Wilson has pared his music-making to what may often amount to
a bare minimum. The music consists variously in repeated notes and/or chords,
downward or upward scales more often than not suggesting change-ringing. As
mentioned, the music and its various sections are based on the Fourteen Stations
of the Cross although the music is never programmatic or descriptive. The
layout is as follows: Book One (Jesus is condemned to death, Jesus carries
his cross, Jesus falls for the first time), Book Two (Jesus meets
his mother, Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross, Veronica offers
Jesus her veil to wipe his brow, Jesus falls for the second time), Book
Three (Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, Jesus falls for the third time,
Jesus is stripped of his clothes, Jesus is nailed to the cross) and Book
Four (Jesus dies on the cross, Jesus is taken down from the cross, Jesus
is buried in the tomb). That said, it would be idle to try to relate
the music too closely to any of the stations. Much is left to the listener's
imagination.
However, as already mentioned, the music is quite often tied together by recurring
motifs rather than themes that run throughout the entire work, the most prominent
of them being what I like to refer to as the change-ringing motif. The final
station (Jesus is buried in the tomb) – by far the longest
section – is almost exclusively built on that motif.
This is a substantial work whose music is intricately worked-out. I am sure
that it would take a long and detailed analysis to bring out all the subtle
inter-relationships of the various elements that make this imposing structure
so compelling.
Matthew Schellhorn's committed approach is aided by his unfailing technique
to bring out the best of this extraordinary construction. His beautifully
shaped performance is also well served by an excellent recording allowing
for a natural piano sound that never sounds aggressive even in the more forceful
moments.
A seventy-minute piano piece may be too much for some of you to absorb in
one sitting but each book can be listened to separately, several times if
need be, before throwing oneself into a hearing of the whole.
Ian Wilson's Stations is a major addition to the piano repertoire
of the twenty-first century.
Hubert Culot
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