Julian Anderson

JULIAN ANDERSON FANTASIAS THE CRAZED MOON THE DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN VLADIMIR JUROWSKI conductor RYAN WIGGLESWORTH conductor LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA JULIAN ANDERSON Julian Anderson has Orchestra’s ‘Music of Today’ series. Between been the London 2005 and 2007 he was The Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Orchestra’s Fellow. Composer in Residence since His Book of Hours (2005), a piece for ensemble 2010. Born in and electronics for Birmingham Contemporary London in 1967, he Music Group, won the 2006 Royal Philharmonic studied composition Society Award for large-scale work. His © Maurice Foxall © Maurice Foxall with John Lambert, interest in choral music led to a BBC Proms Alexander Goehr commission, Heaven is Shy of Earth, and to his and Tristan Murail. His first acknowledged Alleluia, commissioned by Southbank Centre work, Diptych (1990), won the 1992 Royal to open the newly refurbished Royal Festival Philharmonic Society Prize for Young Hall in 2007. His work Harmony opened the Composers and his two commissions for the 2013 BBC Proms. His opera Thebans will be London Sinfonietta, Khorovod (1994) and premiered at English National Opera in May Alhambra Fantasy (2000), have been widely 2014, and in the 2013/14 season he also performed in Europe and the USA. His other started a three-year post as Composer in most-played works include the orchestral BBC Residence at Wigmore Hall. Proms commission The Stations of the Sun (1998) and the chamber work Poetry Nearing Previously Head of Composition at London’s Silence (1997), a commission from the Nash Royal College of Music and Fanny Mason Ensemble. Professor of Music at Harvard University, Julian is currently Professor of Composition and From 1996–2001 Anderson was Composer Composer in Residence at the Guildhall School in Residence with the chamber orchestra of Music & Drama. Sinfonia 21; from 2000–05 he was Composer in Association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; and in 2002 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Philharmonia INTRODUCTION This CD is the product of my first years as Fantasias (2009) is the product of my period Composer in Residence with the London as Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow Philharmonic Orchestra, a post I began in with The Cleveland Orchestra. The Crazed October 2010. Working closely with a major Moon (1997) was written on commission international orchestra is always the greatest from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. privilege and joy of a composer’s life. One The Discovery of Heaven is the most recent learns so much, and communication with both piece on the disc, and was composed for the whole orchestra and individual players is the London Philharmonic Orchestra on joint fluid and flexible in a way not possible in the commission with the New York Philharmonic. normal run of things. A deeper collaboration The LPO’s great sympathy for this new with the chief conductor – in this case the piece was immediately evident at the first splendid Vladimir Jurowski – also becomes performance under the brilliant composer/ possible over several seasons. Above all, the conductor Ryan Wigglesworth in March 2012, living composer is no longer a mere spectre which is preserved on this CD. at the orchestral feast, but is integrated into orchestral life in a regular and productive way. I would like to express my warmest thanks to the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s I have been very fortunate to experience such Chief Executive and Artistic Director, Timothy residency posts with various orchestras both in Walker; to his incredibly supportive team (led the UK and the USA. The London Philharmonic by Graham Wood) who have all aided this Orchestra residency has embodied these association very consistently; to the wonderful benefits in plenty. I have much enjoyed the editing team at Floating Earth; and above all opportunities this post has afforded me: to the performers on this recording who have collaborating in detail with the LPO players, done such a splendid job with these pieces. both on their wonderful interpretations of my previous orchestral works, and on newly Julian Anderson, August 2013 composed pieces. FANTASIAS Fantasia I Presto ♩=160 The first Fantasia is for brass alone, and is Fantasia II ♩=92 generally fast, athletic and polyrhythmic. Fantasia III Dolcissimo notturno ♩=46 The second Fantasia is deliberately unstable: Fantasia IV Molto allegro ♩=140 every few bars it changes direction abruptly. Fantasia V Prestissimo ♩=152 As the ideas accumulate, continuity gradually builds up but the movement disperses into Commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra with echoes of itself before it can really cohere. the generous support of Jan R. and Daniel R. Lewis. The third movement, by contrast, is at First performance: 19 November 2009, first stable to the point of being almost Severance Hall, Cleveland, USA: The Cleveland motionless – a meditative nocturne in several Orchestra/Jonathan Nott. simultaneous layers. Very slow, almost motionless string textures (using techniques Whereas most of my previous orchestral pieces such as bowing with excess pressure to were in one continuous movement, this work is produce a creaking sound, or else bowing with in five separate movements of varying length. very little pressure) are heard against fast As suggested by the title, the form of each but strangely distant polyrhythmic fanfares movement is unpredictable, featuring sudden on wind and some brass, mainly using ideas changes, inserts from other movements, from the opening Fantasia. Longer and calmer silences, or other features that cause the music melodic lines and ideas emerge from time to to alter its course in terms of timbre, texture, time. The movement stops suddenly twice. harmony, polyphony or rhythmic layering. When it resumes a third time, the formerly distant fanfares have become suddenly very Several players double on instruments tuned a loud and wild. quarter-tone below normal pitch. This expands the range of harmonic colours available – the The extremely fast fourth Fantasia is as aim is not to sound out of tune – and is only compressed as possible, lasting barely two used in a few special passages in the piece minutes. The maximum number of musical (for example at the end of the fourth Fantasia), events is forced into as small a span of time to give a new tint to the orchestral texture. as possible. The movement ends twice: a final assertive chord is destabilised at once THE CRAZED MOON by a second conclusion that is much more Commissioned by the BBC. uncertain. First performance: 20 July 1997, Cheltenham International Festival, Cheltenham Town Hall, The final Fantasia is the longest, and is the only UK: BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Tadaaki movement to proceed largely in a continuous Otaka flow. It starts with the last harmony of the opening brass movement and varies ideas from This piece takes its title from a poem by all movements, eventually uniting them into a W. B. Yeats, in which he describes a frightening long continuous line heard three times in a row vision: ‘Crazed through much child-bearing / near the end. The conclusion is disrupted just The moon is staggering in the sky.’ This image, before the end by an insert looking back into combined with the disturbing lunar eclipse the rich string textures of the third movement. seen in March 1996, provided the starting Whether fast or slow, Fantasias is a celebration point for a work for orchestra lasting about 14 of the modern symphony orchestra. minutes, in one continuous movement. The other factor determining the funereal mood of Fantasias is dedicated with affection, the work was the sudden death in September admiration and gratitude to my publisher Sally 1995 of a composer and friend, Graeme Smith, Cavender at Faber Music, for her tireless energy at the age of only 24. This piece is dedicated to in promoting contemporary music. his memory. The work opens with distant fanfares for three trumpets, emphasising the pitches G and E-flat (‘Es’ in German) – a reference to the initials (G. S.) of the dedicatee. The full orchestra then enters hesitantly, uncertainly, in the lowest register. The music gradually unfolds a long, slow harmonic progression, which is broken off before achieving completion. A change of direction ushers in bells, gongs and harps tolling the pitches G and E-flat, against which THE DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN a sequence of lamenting melodic figures Commissioned by the London Philharmonic descends on woodwind and high strings. Orchestra with kind support from The Boltini As these lines accumulate in considerable Trust and the Britten-Pears Foundation, and polyphonic density, the music swerves violently the New York Philharmonic (Alan Gilbert, Music into far more volatile and hectic textures, Director). before launching into the long central plateau First performance: 24 March 2012, Royal of the work. Each layer simultaneously plays Festival Hall, London, UK: London Philharmonic its own variants of a basic melodic line, with Orchestra/Ryan Wigglesworth. up to 30 different variants heard at once. Each new phrase of this heterophony is greeted by The Discovery of Heaven is a work in three dissonant fanfares on high wind, brass and movements, of which Parts 2 and 3 are played bells. The final phrase accelerates and, as it without a break. The two starting points were does so, the heterophony is gradually shut the novel of the same name by Dutch writer off as the orchestra combines into a unison. Harry Mulisch (1927–2010); and the ancient This collapses dramatically – as it were, Japanese court music known as gagaku – in the moment of eclipse – greeted by baying particular one of the best-known pieces in fanfares on brass. There follows a series of gagaku repertoire, called Etenraku, which chorales. The final chorale is the most complex: literally means ‘music coming from heaven’.

Load more