Jonathan Harvey applies the metaphor of a journey through life to his Cello Concerto (1990). He believes that ''happiness is the ultimate destination of the human journey'', and one special quality of the Concerto is its quite unbanal use of sounds––harp, celesta, vibraphone––which could be the most banal means of evoking a 'celestial' atmosphere. The work achieves an extremely successful balance between richness of detail and clarity of outline, and while it appears to be much more concerned with the often turbulent progress of the journey than with its ultimate, blissful goal, the music is fully equal to the essentially spiritual context within which Harvey seeks to place it. It is also––for those of more secular predispositions––a brilliant display piece superbly realized in this live but confident and polished performance.
A comparable metaphor serves for Curve with Plateaux (1982), which travels from depths to heights, then reverses the process, reaching an explicitly funereal conclusion. The journeys charted by the other works on the disc are perhaps best described as excursions into the heart and soul of the cello. In Three Sketches (1989) the instrument is remodelled by means of skilfully conceived restringings and retunings. In Ricercare una melodia (1985), electronics (tape delay) first multiply the natural cello sounds, then transform them with haunting, deep reverberations. Finally, in Philia's Dream (1992)––a foretaste of Harvey's opera Inquest of Love––the cello is absorbed into the spell cast by a synthesizer, a spell that recalls Stockhausen's Stimmung in its contemplative focus on consonant resonances.
The disc is technically exemplary, a celebration alike of Harvey's musical imagination and the outstanding interpretative gifts of Frances-Marie Uitti.'