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Sam Hayden Die Abkehr 11’07

Ensemble Musikfabrik • Stefan Asbury conductor Helen Bledsoe fl ute/piccolo/alto fl ute · Peter Veale /cor anglais Richard Haynes contrabass · Rike Huy /piccolo trumpet Bruce Collings · Benjamin Kobler · Dirk Rothbrust percussion Hannah Weirich · Axel Porath · Dirk Wietheger Håkon Thelin double bass Enter code: HAYDEN247 nmcrec.co.uk/recording/dieabkehr

Die Abkehr (Turning Away) is the most recent drive or melodic elegance of a particular part one composition presented here. As Hayden explains, moment, to the dialogic interplay between different ‘[t]he more poetic meanings of the title hint at a instruments the next and the more complex and critical commentary on the increasingly nostalgic diffuse surface of the totality at another time. What and inward-looking culture of the UK’. Abkehr also remains tantalisingly out of reach is an appreciation means ‘renunciation’, and to what extent that title of the whole and its constituent parts at the same time. is expressed more specifi cally in the piece, over and Again like earlier works, Die Abkehr is highly above being embodied by a musical language that episodic: there are three movements, each seems out of step with what the sees as consisting of a number of short individual sections the dominant trends in the UK and that is largely each exploring a particularly type of material. If shared with the rest of his oeuvre is hard to say. As anything, however, Hayden appears to have grown the composer also states, the composition ‘is the bolder in his use of the general pause: time and latest of a cycle of pieces that combine ideas related again, the music recedes into silence, before to “spectral” traditions with algorithmic approaches starting afresh. This may be partly a property of this to composition, where aspects of the pitch and particular performance: the score contains many rhythmical materials are computer-generated using fermatas, measured and unmeasured ones, with SUBSTRATUM IRCAM’s OpenMusic.’ Considering this approach, precious little indication of how to perform them: the level of continuity with Hayden’s previous only those at the end of the second movement and work may come as a surprise. The subtle dialectic the very end are a whole bar long and the latter is between individual line and collective totality given the further indication lunga pausa. But the that is characteristic of most of Hayden’s mature similarity to Transience, which too falls silent time compositions, is, if anything, more developed here. and again, suggests that this is no coincidental

As listeners, we may be drawn to the rhythmic aspect. Heile Björn © 2019 2 SAM HAYDEN SUBSTRATUM

1 Relative Autonomy 13’50 Ensemble Musikfabrik • Stefan Asbury conductor Helen Bledsoe fl ute/piccolo/alto fl ute · Peter Veale oboe/cor anglais · Michele Marelli e-fl at/b-fl at Richard Haynes contrabass/bass clarinets · Elise Jacoberger contrabassoon/bassoon · Rike Huy trumpet/piccolo trumpet Rune Brodahl horn · Bruce Collings bass trombone · Melvyn Poore · Jürgen Kruse piano · Dirk Rothbrust percussion Hannah Weirich violin 1 · Diamanda Dramm violin 2 · Axel Porath viola · Dirk Wietheger cello · Håkon Thelin double bass Transience 2 I 5’12 3 II 4’28 4 III 4’12 5 IV 4’28 6 V 3’46 7 VI 3’55 8 VII 5’29 Quatour Diotima Yun-Peng Zhao violin 1 · Constance Ronzatti violin 2 · Franck Chevalier viola · Pierre Morlet cello

9 Substratum 24’49 BBC Symphony Orchestra • David Robertson conductor Total timing 70’27 Please see p. 12 for information on how to download the free bonus track Die Abkehr.

photo © Charles Linehan

3 Gestural Music Hayden would have looked to Harvey’s quartets employed that sets the work apart, even in a ‘pure’, lyrical playing seems to obscure both the for inspiration. twenty-fi rst-century context. What is perhaps instrument and its player: they become pitch. The centrepiece of this album is formed by a most characteristic of Hayden’s approach By contrast, it is the often forced, strained or substantial string quartet in seven movements Harvey’s string quartets are renowned for in this work and many others is that pitch is suppressed quality of many of the sounds in and of about half an hour in length. To anyone reinventing the ensemble, using his experience never abandoned in favour of noise, but it is, Hayden’s work that allows us to perceive the who knows Sam Hayden and his music, the with to imagine entire new depending on the occasion and one’s own instruments and the players: horse hair on seemingly traditional genre may come as sound worlds for the instruments. As the perception, enriched, sharpened or in danger of string, the wood of the instrument vibrating, a surprise from a composer who is deeply quotation above indicated, Hayden could be being submerged by it. There are very few ‘pure’ practised hands clenching the bow, the tension committed to the promise of innovation said to pick up where Harvey left off: there is sounds; most are, variously, scrapy, scratchy, of the player’s body released in a downstroke, inherent in the modernist project. Yet, not hardly a note in the entire quartet that is bowed grainy and hoarse or tender, soft and whistling. the minute adjustments of the fi nger on the least due to the commissioning of new work ‘ordinario’. Techniques such as ‘col legno’ The composition revolves around this tension string to produce the softest of harmonics … by leading ensembles, the string quartet has (playing with the wood of the bow creating a between pure pitch on the one hand and pure What both violent and tender gestures have gained a tradition in new music that rivals scraping, grainy sound), ‘sul ponticello’ (playing noise on the other as well as the exploitation of in common is that they evoke an embodied near the bridge, resulting in a faint, whispery its classical and romantic legacy. One may the whole spectrum in between those poles. response. This music does not only engage sound) and ‘sul tasto’ (bowing on the fi nger still detect a suspicion of genre traditions in our ears and minds, but our bodies too: it is board, producing a soft, fl ute-like sound) are the The result is a particularly bodily conception the choice of a specifi c title,Transience for visceral, sensuous. norm rather than the exception, and a host of of musical material. In a celebrated essay, String Quartet, over a genre title, although the others are used, often in combination. Perhaps the French poststructural literary theorist and This physicality is also apparent in the gestural instrumentation is mentioned. As the composer the most characteristic in the quartet are philosopher Roland Barthes wrote about the nature of the musical language ; ‘gesture’ here explains in a commentary, the ‘“transient” [is] glissandi (gliding on the strings) and harmonics ‘grain of the voice’, which he defi ned as ‘the has to be understood both literally, in the sense the short lived noisy part of the beginning of a (soft, ‘whistling’ overtones when strings are body in the voice as it sings’. This notion is of the movements performed by the musicians, sound associated with its attack, before a clear not fully depressed) as well as microtones. The more complicated than is often assumed, but and metaphorically, in the sense of clear frequency has come into being, a phenomenon conventional idea of a lyrical string sound can what Barthes is drawing attention to is how expressive musical shapes. As the composer that was important to the conception of only be glimpsed at rare moments. lyrical singing in a ‘pure’ voice (the example states, ‘[t]he piece oscillates constantly the material’. Another important clue is the he gives is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau) seems between dense, energetic, hyper-virtuosic dedication ‘to Jonathan Harvey, my teacher, At the same time, however, the defamiliarization to rob the voice of its materiality and physical gestural materials and moments of relative mentor and friend’. Harvey died in 2012; the of the string sound is not an end in itself, and it nature whereas voices ‘with grain’ (he names clarity, sustain and stasis (or intermediate score is dated 2013-14, although that may not is instructive that Hayden does not appear to go Charles Panzéra, who was a major fi gure in his states), but never settling one way or the other.’ cover the entire gestation period. Harvey wrote beyond what are by now fairly well-established own age but whose reputation has otherwise Complex though the texture often appears, a distinguished cycle of four string quartets (the playing techniques and makes no obvious somewhat faded) allow us to hear ‘the tongue, these gestures have a direct force, usually last of which with electronics) over the course attempt to invent entirely new ones. It is the the glottis, the teeth, the mucous membranes, expressed in easily perceptible contours: of his career, and it seems reasonable that consistency with which these techniques are the nose’. Similarly, in instrumental playing, the highly episodic form is characterised by

64 75 sections in upward, downward or wave-like Ensemble’. What keeps the listener from being by very dense, busy textures, and these too a large orchestra. Moreover, not all instruments movement, but rarely complex combinations or overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material are structured vertically through the layering allow such a nuanced modifi cation of sustained successions thereof. Note, for instance, how is the layering of the ensemble: there is a heavy of the orchestra and horizontally through notes as strings. Nevertheless, we may witness many movements end in a gradual ascension layer of bass instruments – contrabass clarinet distinct sections, which, as in the earlier a redirection of compositional emphasis, away in all instruments, reaching up to the highest and contrabassoon (doubling bass clarinet cases, often closely resemble one another. from regarding the individual note as the basic register in multiple piano, as if the music and bassoon, respectively – not the other way There is also a heavy bass component, which building block, and towards the manipulation were to move beyond our hearing threshold. around!), tuba and bass trombone, cello and gives the work its title. What is perhaps most and modifi cation of individuals notes, alongside Hayden speaks of the ‘proliferation of self- double bass – which is contrasted with the striking is the contrast between passages of a revaluation of silence as a compositional tool. similar materials’, and, although there are no prominent use of instruments at the opposite busy, even frantic activity and sudden periods repetitions, the more one listens, the more one extreme, such as piccolo fl ute and E fl at of stasis, even paralysis, when notes are © 2019 Björn Heile is drawn into the web of connections between clarinet. These two layers seem to be indeed sustained as if frozen in time. It is moments the different elements. ‘relatively autonomous’; piano and percussion like these that perhaps illustrate most clearly mostly provide short interjections that do not SAM HAYDEN ON NMC Many of the characteristics of Transience – the development of Hayden’s compositional quite blend with either of the other two layers. presence/absence NMC D168 the proliferation of self-similar materials; the concerns and technique in recent years. The This vertical organisation is coupled with a Trio EKL | ELISION/Eugene Ughetti conductor gestural language in a highly episodic sectional alternation and contrast between heightened horizontal structuring of the overall form. In activity and stasis remains as prominent a ensemble mosaik/ conductor form; the charged, bodily sounds – can be his comments, Hayden has related the piece’s found in the two earlier compositions presented feature in Transience as it was in Substratum, Wired NMC D145 title primarily with this formal dimension, featuring Sam Hayden’s scintilla here: Relative Autonomy for 16 Players (2004) but in the more recent composition Hayden drawing attention to ‘two quasi-autonomous appears to deliberately avoid simple sustained Jane Chapman harpsichord and Substratum for Large Orchestra (2004- yet highly linked sections of this piece, [in notes. One new element is silence: time and The Hoxton 13 NMC D057 06/rev. 2008). The dense texture, complexity which] related musical material is treated in again the music comes to a full stop and featuring Sam Hayden’s partners in psychopathology and richness of detail in Relative Autonomy very different ways, the second section being falls silent. Another is constant shaping of Ensemble/Peter Wiegold conductor is impossible to grasp in its entirety, so that, a highly compressed version of the fi rst.’ As a the sound: the prevalence of glissandi has HERE BE MONSTERS NMC DL3005 as listeners, we are torn between a focus on result of these approaches to structuring the been mentioned already, but it is only one of featuring Sam Hayden’s Recoil individual parts and elements on the one hand material the music at times resembles a sonic the ways in which held notes are modifi ed in Ensemble Exposé and the resulting totality on the other. This is onslaught, but one in which the individual Transience. Admittedly, some of the divergence one way of interpreting the title: the individual elements remain discernible within the overall STANDING JUMP NMC DL3007 between Substratum and Transience can be featuring Sam Hayden’s Anthem players seem ‘relatively autonomous’ of one texture and relatable to other passages within explained by the difference in instrumentation: [rout] another and the collective as a whole; note the piece. too the unusual reference to the individual the writing in the string quartet LOOPHOLE NMC DL3008 players rather than the collective: ‘for 16 Substratum seems in many ways a sister work facilitates a level of individual detail that would featuring Sam Hayden’s Fragment (after Losses) Players’, rather than, more conventionally, ‘for to Relative Autonomy. It too is characterised be impractical to realise and hard to discern in Stephen Gutman piano

86 7 Sam Hayden studied composition with Martin Jahrhundert (Saarbrücken), Spitalfi elds Winter Relative Autonomy and Die Abkehr were recorded at Funkhaus FOR FURTHER DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT: Wallrafplatz, WDR, Köln, on 6 October 2017. NMC Recordings Ltd Butler, Michael Finnissy and Jonathan Harvey Festival (London), Tage für (Zürich), WERNER WITTERSHEIM Executive Producer St Margaret’s House STEPHAN SCHMIDT Recording Producer at the , Joseph Dubiel and Ultima Festival (Oslo) and Warsaw Autumn. 21 Old Ford Road THOMAS KUPILAS Sound Engineer David Rakowski at Columbia University, Louis Bethnal Green, London, E2 9PL Other performers of Hayden’s works include ARND COPPERS Recording Assistant & Editing Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory, The DIRK FRANKEN Mastering Tel. +44 (0)20 3022 5836/88 ASKO Ensemble, Ensemble Antidogma, E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.nmcrec.co.uk Hague, and at Stanford Substratum was recorded at Barbican Hall, London on 8 December 2008 Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, NEIL PEMBERTON Recording & Editing Engineer All rights of the manufacturer and owner of the recorded material University. He has been the recipient of Canto Battuto, Ensemble Cattrall, De Ereprijs, ANN MCKAY Recording Producer reserved. Unauthorised public performance, broadcasting and copying many awards including fi rst prize in the 1995 of this recording prohibited. Ensemble Ernst, Ensemble Exposé, Gruppe Transience was recorded at St Paul’s Hall, Huddersfield Benjamin Britten International Competition on 26 November 2016 The BBC word mark and logo and the ‘BBC Radio 3’ logo are trade für Neue Musik Baden, Takao Hyakutome, SAM HAYDEN Recording Producer marks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and used under licence. and fi rst prize in the 2003 Christoph Delz Ictus Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, CHRISTOPHER MCDONNELL Recording Engineer BBC Logo © BBC 2007 Foundation Competition for Composers. He has DAVID LEFEBER Editing & mixing Mieko Kanno, Kokoro Ensemble, José Menor, Relative Autonomy & Die Abkehr ℗ 2017 WDR had composition residencies at the Civitella DAVID LEFEBER Mastering Transience ℗ 2019 NMC Recordings Ltd Darragh Morgan, NYYD Ensemble, Ian Pace, Substratum ℗ 2008 BBC Ranieri Center, Umbria, and the Akademie Relative Autonomy was commissioned by . Die Mats Scheidegger, Ensemble Surplus, Uroboros Abkehr was commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung Tracks 1 & Die Abkehr: The copyright in the recording is owned by WDR. Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and computer Ensemble, Ine Vanoeveren and Orkest de NRW. Substratum was commissioned by BBC Radio 3. Transience was Licensed by WDR Mediagroup GmbH. music collaborations with NOTAM, Oslo, and the commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and Quatuor Diotima with the support of Tracks 2-8: The copyright in the recording is owned by NMC Recordings Ltd. Volharding. His work is published by Verlag DRAC Centre/Région Centre France. Track 9: The copyright in the recording is owned by the BBC. Centre Henri Pousseur, Liège. Neue Musik, Berlin. Cover image: Silas (Shutterstock) © 2019 NMC Recordings Ltd Download cover image: FTiare (Shutterstock) Recent commissions include works for the Catalogue no.: NMC D247 Hayden is Professor of Composition at Trinity NMC Recordings is a charitable company (reg. no. 328052) established BBC Symphony Orchestra, Séverine Ballon, Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. for the recording of contemporary music by the Holst Foundation; it is Christopher Redgate and Cikada Ensemble, grateful for funding from Arts Council England and The Delius Trust. www.samhaydencomposer.com ANNE RUSHTON Executive Director ELISION Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, ELEANOR WILSON General Manager Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Mosaik, ALEX WRIGHT Development & Partnerships Manager LUCILE GASSER Development & Creative Production Coordinator Frode Haltli and Oslo Sinfonietta, Quatuor RACHEL WILMOT Recordings & Marketing Coordinator Diotima, RepertorioZero and Steamboat COLIN MATTHEWS Executive Producer for NMC Switzerland, performed at festivals including DISTRIBUTION Ars Musica (Brussels), BBC Proms (London), NMC recordings are distributed worldwide in CD, download and Incorporating a BBC Recording streaming formats. For more information visit our website. Música Contemporánea Fundación BBVA You can also purchase recordings direct from our online store (Bilbao), Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer www.nmcrec.co.uk Musik, Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Utrecht), Information about the artists on this disc Huddersfi eld Contemporary Music Festival, can be found on NMC’s website: Festival Images Sonores (Liège), London Ear www.nmcrec.co.uk Festival, MaerzMusik (Berlin), Musik im 21.

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