ANDERSON Heaven is Shy of Earth; The Comedy of Change
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Oliver Knussen, Julian Anderson
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Ondine
Magazine Review Date: 12/2018
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 62
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ODE1313-2
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
The Comedy of Change |
Julian Anderson, Composer
Julian Anderson, Composer London Sinfonietta Oliver Knussen, Composer |
Heaven is Shy of Earth |
Julian Anderson, Composer
BBC Symphony Chorus BBC Symphony Orchestra Julian Anderson, Composer Oliver Knussen, Composer Susan Bickley, Mezzo soprano |
Author: Arnold Whittall
Heaven is Shy of Earth evolved between 2006 and 2010 as a compressed oratorio or expanded cantata combining collective rituals – the Latin Mass without the Credo, a Psalm – and statements of belief as found in the idiosyncratic verse of Emily Dickinson. An orchestral introduction sets the stage for what might have been called ‘Epithalamium’ or wedding song, built round an expansive, ecstatic melody written for the marriage of the couple to whom the whole work is dedicated. That joyous spirit permeates the remarkable equilibrium of Anderson’s response to God-centred choral liturgy – as vivid here as in his Bell Mass (also 2010) – as well as to Dickinson’s fervent hymnings (given mainly to the vibrant mezzo of Susan Bickley), in a sequence of more earthbound but arresting aphorisms: ‘Nature is Heaven’, ‘Nature is Melody’, ‘Nature is Harmony’, ‘Heaven is Shy of Earth’.
The implications of what the poet might actually have meant by that last phrase are not easily resolved. Anderson therefore ends the work with a Dickinson-free movement, a setting of the Agnus Dei whose final plea for peace on earth perhaps suggests that, whereas nature is what we know, heaven remains unknowable. As a title, The Comedy of Change also has its enigmatic aspects. But this seven-movement suite for 12 players, originally linked to a ballet celebrating Darwin’s Origin of Species, revels in the mysteries and miracles of the natural world, with the exuberant yet eloquent thrust of music designed to affirm rather than to bemoan. In both The Comedy of Change and Heaven is Shy of Earth Julian Anderson’s feeling for the bridges that can be built between music’s timeless acoustic essentials and present-day transformational resources is unfailingly distinctive and acute.
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