Edmund FINNIS (b. 1984)
Shades
String Quartet No 1 ‘Aloysius’ (2018) [16:37]
String Quartet No 2 (2021) [13:05]
Manchester Collective
rec. 2020 (1), 2022 (2), Stoller Hall, Manchester UK
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
BEDROOM COMMUNITY HVALUR42 [29:42]
This album is what might be termed ‘a grower’. My initial impressions were of the influences audible in these two works but as I got to know it, its unique characteristics became more apparent. They are both understated works and relatively conservative in musical terms which means that their strengths are subtle ones. It is easy to hear echoes of Pärt, Britten, Byrd and even, at moments, Vaughan Williams. Get to know them and Finnis’ own voice becomes increasingly distinct, playing with and transforming those influences. Similarly, that this music is not emotive doesn’t mean it isn’t emotional.
To give some idea of what to expect from these works, it might help to see them as taking the viol consort as their starting point. Whilst not as complex polyphonically, they have a similar character of endlessly overlapping phrases. Finnis’ harmonic language is not especially dissonant but the overlapping lines do crunch from time to time in the manner of Renaissance music. His writing for strings is not abrasive nor does it require much in the way of extended techniques though he does delight in harmonics and the resonance of open strings.
The mood of both works is essentially contemplative and calm. None of the movements could really be termed fast even if some – the finale of the first quartet, for example- are more mobile than others. The first quartet seems to me the more mystical of the two in character with its long ethereal melody lines. The composer writes of them:
“They are outcomes of my enduring need to communicate something that I’m incapable of fully expressing with words. I would if I could. I know that it has something to do with love.”
There is a sense of yearning in the way the material in both quartets strains upwards. The second movement of the first quartet reaches a brightly lit, shimmering conclusion which can’t help but bring Pärt to mind but it is full of an ache rather than the meditative mood of the Estonian’s work. The impression is of reticent, almost shy, love songs rather than devotionals.
That reticence applies to the formal concision of both works. They manage to say a lot in a brief span of time but without feeling small scale. They are short works because of Finnis’ elegant craftsmanship, not because they lack anything to say. It takes real skill to master material well enough to say just as much as needs to be said and no more. There is a comparable faith in his writing that it needs no fireworks or outrō effects to hold the listener’s attention. Faith, I would say, that is fully justified by this excellent performance and recording.
David McDade
