Three Contemporary British Composers: Andrew Downes Peter Seabourne David F Ciolightly
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Three Contemporary British Composers: Andrew Downes Peter Seabourne David F Ciolightly Peter Dickinson on Christopher Anderson on Efi Christodoulou on The Verdehr Trio - an Max Reger - thoughts Performing Busoni's astonishing legacy on his centenary Violin Concerto Gregor Tassie on Giovanni Nesi on Bridget Cunningham on Boris Tischenko Domenico Zipoli recording Handel at Composers under the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens Soviets: VI Paul Coles: My 'Fire Dance' The Legacy of Dinorah Varsi • International Festival and Opera Reports • Shakespeare and Music All the latest news, views, reviews and previews Richard Whitehouse 'r'\ orn in 1960 near Devizes, Peter United States. His now extensive cata- Studies of Invention (Sheva SH065) takes E 8 bSeabourne studied at Clare College logue comprises symphonic and chamber its inspiration from Leonardo sketches g! Cambridge with Robin Holloway and York works, song cycles and an ongoing large- across a series of 15 pieces, whereas g University with David Blake. In 1984 he scale piano cycle entitled Steps. The Italian Arabesques (Sheva SH088) is a ~ ~ was joint winner of the Overseas League label Sheva Collection has so far issued sequence of nine pieces that embodies * Composition Competition then came five discs of his music, and it is the three Seabourne's responses to aspects of the ~ second in the Benjamin Britten Prize for most recent releases from this label which Alhambra as seen through paintings by 1 1986, with works performed at various are considered here. the composer's aunt. The first disc under ~ festivals and at London's South Bank Earlier releases of piano music from consideration here comprises the fourth €. Centre. Around 1989 he abandoned comp- Seabourne had given notice of a volume of Steps - written with the artistry osition, citing a growing dissatisfaction with composer wholly (and perhaps unusually of Giuseppe Modugno in mind and the new music milieu and the wish to re- in the present day) at ease within the unfolding along the lines of an 'Italian evaluate his musical aesthetic. Only in medium of solo piano. The composer song-book' where such disparate facets as 2001 did he resume composition, since speaks of having 'a romantic sensibility ... the village of Bertinoro, the life and work when he has received awards from several my art is a lyrical one', though the writing of Amedeo Modigliani, and the pianist's international competitions. Seabourne's is of a technical and expressive range that own playing all combine to leave their work has been commissioned by num- indicates a wide knowledge of twentieth- mark. erous European organisations, and his century pianism (latter-day British exam- Libra di Canti Italiano (2010) is a coll- music has been broadcast in Norway, the ples include Nicholas Maw's Personae ection of 19 pieces - 'cameo snapshots' Czech Republic, Finland, Germany and the and Colin Matthews's Studies in Velocity). as Seabourne calls them - such as MUSICAL OPINION QUARTERLY JULY-SEPTEMBER 2016 15 embody many of those qualities which as is embodied in music accruing detail as ... overwhelmingly pessimistic and might be thought innately Italian. To take over a distinct rhythmic ground-plan as bleak". This is evident from the outset of 'I (not entirely at random) just six of these stealthy as it is resourceful. Canto Lontono (Numb - tolling - distant)" akin to a pieces - Canto dello Vito (No. (No. 14) constitutes the rapt processional in its sombrely tolling chords 1) launches proceedings with heart of this work - its and a halting rhythmic tread such as a harmonic piquancy and Cl I S b three, subtly differentiated emerges gradually into the foreground rhythmic agility that are ear Y ea ourne verses being marked off before retuming into the distance. Among mainstays of this opus as a is a composer with by ominous trills in the the pieces that follow, 'IV (Flighty - whole. Piccolo Canto bass. Canto Gioioso (No. enigmatic - delicate - fragile)' offers a d'Amore Tremente (No. 4) whom to reckon, his 19) concludes the coll- degree of affirmation with its ecstatic trills constitutes an unanswered ection with its dance-like and arabesques, though this proves short- love-song, its rippling mel- music combining a verve and energy. lived in context. 'VIII (Troubled - ody shot-through with an The fifth volume of rhapsodic)' summons a melody out of its acute poignancy. Coril/on demonstrably Steps, entitled Sixteen texture to diverting effect, but this is Triste (No. 10) offers a deft Scenes Before 0 Cruci- outfaced by the restless manner of the assemblage of bell sounds Romantic rhetoric fixion (2014), seems less music overall. 'XII (Meandering - and metrical patterns that with an always of a collection than a lamenting - increasingly crushing), is the evokes demonstrably powe- linear sequence taking as most complex in its meshing of rful emotions as it inten- audible and yet its point of departure the antagonistic elements towards a brutal sifies. Canto di Ammultino- Passiontide canvases by climax. 'XVI (Very still - spacious - mento (No. 11) takes its never facile Caravaggio; translated questioning)' is an ending of stark import cue from a visit to the hiding into music that the as betrayal anticipates crucifixion. place of Giuseppe Garibaldi approach to tonality. composer has described Turning to the Viola Dolorosa album 16 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2016 MUSICAL OPINION QUARTERLY and a work conceptually even more parallels in the viola liter- The performances Hamann (violist of the Aron integrated, Heto (2007) is a large-scale 'in ature for its formal Quartet, whose cycle of the memoriam' to the composer's parents ambition and emotional on all three discs Schoenberg quartets on whose title was inspired by the statues of breadth, but the composer Preiser is among the best Michelangelo. Certainly an often sombre has ensured that cont- underline the available) similarly has the introspection is evident throughout the inuity goes hand in hand measure of Pieta, not least five movements, the first four of which with diversity in what is a advocacy which through his close accord unfold as gradually intensifying pairs - notable addition to its with pianist Akari Komiya in from the soulful eloquence of 'Berceuse' repertoire. Seabourne enjoys what a formidable duo (1) to the rapt inwardness of 'Elegy' (3), The performances on partnership. This latter disc or from a quixotic juxtaposition of all three discs underline among several also takes in the two fractured rhythmic and sustained melodic the advocacy which Sea- notable European principal viola pieces by writing in 'Enigmas' (2) through to the bourne enjoys among Britten - the smouldering combative interplay of antagonistic several notable European exponents. pathos of the early Elegy elements that characterise 'Seven Roads' exponents. Ongoing com- (1930) and the stylistically (4). Much the longest movement, this mitments have also meant more mature Lochrymoe latter justifies its high-flown rhetoric as it that Giuseppe Modugno has not yet been (1950), whose varied 'reflections' (rather surges to a violent close - after which, able to perform Libra. .. but the artistry of than variations) on a Dowland melody 'Reminiscence' (5) concludes this piece Fabio Menchetti is its own justification, presage the climactic emergence of that with a tendemess and repose that feels while Alessandro Viale seems no less theme. Britten's later transcription for the more affecting given what went inside the more fraught expressive sound- strings may yield greater expressive before. At over 37 minutes Pieta has few world of Sixteen Scenes.... Georg nuance, but this original version has its own potency when so skilfully rendered. Clearly Seabourne is a composer with whom to reckon, his music combining a demonstrably Romantic rhetoric with an always audible and yet never facile approach to tonality. Recent years have witnessed an expansion of his thinking - with three symphonies (and a fourth in progress), three chamber concertos and a song-cycle after Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus reaching fruition. Whether his music gains wider dissemination in the UK remains to be seen; should this fail to happen, it is likely to be less through antagonism from what remains of a new music 'establishment' than his refusal to emulate the facile thinking which nowadays too often passes muster for tonal composition. Ambitious, questing and pointedly European in outlook, the music of Peter Seabourne avoids easy answers in its search for an idiom such as embodies the past while it embraces the future: those coming to it afresh will find these discs a persuasive way into a compositional voice as distinctive as it is compelling. • Seabourne: Steps, Volume 4 Sheva SH104 (48'58") Seabourne: Steps, Volume 5 Sheva SH136 (53'42") Seabourne: Viola Dolorosa Sheva SH137 (58'02") MUSICAL OPINION QUARTERLY JULY-SEPTEMBER 2016 17.