Goehr Choral Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: (Peter) Alexander Goehr
Label: Unicorn-Kanchana
Magazine Review Date: 9/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 65
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: DKPCD9129
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Sing, Ariel |
(Peter) Alexander Goehr, Composer
(Peter) Alexander Goehr, Composer Chi-Chi Nwanoku, Double bass David White, Saxophone David White, Bass clarinet Eileen Hulse, Soprano John Wallace, Trumpet Lucy Shelton, Soprano Marcia Crayford, Violin Marcia Crayford, Viola Oliver Knussen, Conductor Sarah Leonard, Soprano |
| (The) Mouse Metemorphosed into a Maid |
(Peter) Alexander Goehr, Composer
(Peter) Alexander Goehr, Composer Lucy Shelton, Soprano |
Author: Stephen Johnson
Frank Kermode's text for the song-cycle Sing, Ariel is an achievement in itself: fragments of Auden, Shakespeare, Yeats, Pound, Hardy, Wallace Stevens and more, so artfully drawn together that they constantly throw new lights on each other, and at the heart, a fine piece of late Larkin—gloomy, growingly apprehensive and then, at the climax, a breathtaking surprise … Line after line seems rich in musical possibilities. In other words, it's a gift for a composer.
So what does the recipient of this gift, Alexander Goehr, make of it? The answer comes as rather a surprise in these times of instant-access new music: Goehr'sSing, Ariel is a piece of almost bewildering richness, like a garden that offers too many paths and shifting perspectives to be comprehended in one round trip. But it's precisely that which draws the ear back—that, and the sheer beauty of some passages: the intertwining of the soloist and two 'echo' sopranos at the end of Part 1, the doleful Stevens setting of Part 3, or the way that Hardy's ''Thus, I, faltering forward'' seems to turn itself effortlessly into halting, highly-charged phrases. One of the things I've found increasingly depressing in reviewing contemporary vocal works is that often the voice writing is the least memorable facet—unless of course it's just plain bad. But in Sing Ariel soprano phrases fix themselves in the memory—the core of the expression, and of the melodic writing, is there.
Is all Sing Ariel on this exalted level? I'm not sure yet; on the first hearing there did seem to be moments when the life-force briefly went into hibernation, the writing elegant but a touch inanimate—but then this is a piece which sets out to confront ''wan Despair'', with his ''woeful measures'' and ''low sullen sounds''. There are hints there of the depressed Constant Lambert invoking Gesualdo inSummer's Last Will and Testament—a comparison Goehr probably wouldn't relish, but others might find helpful. And going back through this absorbing, unsettling cycle it seems harder to identify the parts I'd previously heard as lacunae.
The performers must take their share of the credit. Lucy Shelton responds to expressive nuances and the rise and fall of the phrases as though she'd been immersed inSing, Ariel for years, and the instrumentalists under Oliver Knussen respond like a single, sensitive accompanist. Shelton shines again in the unaccompanied The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid—not as repeatable as Sing, Ariel, perhaps, but still a tour de force of singing and writing. Excellent recordings too—produced, it says on the box, by Oliver Knussen. I knew he was clever, but producing and conducting at the same time?'
So what does the recipient of this gift, Alexander Goehr, make of it? The answer comes as rather a surprise in these times of instant-access new music: Goehr's
Is all Sing Ariel on this exalted level? I'm not sure yet; on the first hearing there did seem to be moments when the life-force briefly went into hibernation, the writing elegant but a touch inanimate—but then this is a piece which sets out to confront ''wan Despair'', with his ''woeful measures'' and ''low sullen sounds''. There are hints there of the depressed Constant Lambert invoking Gesualdo in
The performers must take their share of the credit. Lucy Shelton responds to expressive nuances and the rise and fall of the phrases as though she'd been immersed in
Goehr Choral Works
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