Mark-Anthony Turnage

On this CD:

1. On All Fours
Composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage
Performed by Nash Ensemble with Christopher van Kampen, Martin Robertson
Conducted by Oliver Knussen

2. Lament for a Hanging Man
Composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage
Performed by Nash Ensemble with Fiona Kimm
Conducted by Oliver Knussen

3. Sarabande
Composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage
Performed by Iona Brown, Martin Robertson

4. Release
Composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage
Performed by Nash Ensemble
Conducted by Oliver Knussen

Mark-Anthony Turnage, Music, Turnage, Knussen, Nash Ensemble, Classical

Gruber: Aerial; Eötvös: Jet Stream; Turnage: From the Wreckage
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Gruber: Aerial; Eötvös: Jet Stream; Turnage: From the Wreckage

Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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John Adams: The Dharma at Big Sur/My Father Knew Charles Ives

Misterioso

Osvaldo Golijov: Ainadamar

Exposed Throat

Louis Andriessen: Writing to Vermeer

ASIN: B000FOR9XC
Release Date: 2006-08-08

Tracks:

Done With The Compass - Done With The Chart!
Gone Dancing
Jet Stream For Trumpet And Orchestra
From The Wreckage: Concerto For Trumpet And Orchestra

Amazon.com

A fascinating disc combining brilliant virtuosity and outstanding contemporary works. H.K. Gruber's Aerial is an accessible two-movement trumpet concerto. Its first movement depicts an imaginary landscape of northern wastes and begins with thin-air sonorities that turn into weightier passages that climb and recede. The second movement is more earthbound in its wit, with the trumpet, often muted, now soaring, now quizzical, partnered by the powerful rhythms of the orchestra. Peter Eötvös, who conducts the Gothenburg Symphony in all three works, contributes his Jet Stream, which opens with a cross between a foghorn and a Bronx cheer, and continues to explore spacy textures and a fascinating solo part, part improvisational, in which the soloist is shadowed by a trio of trumpeters. Mark-Anthony Turnage's From the Wreckage moves from desolation to assertive hope, with compact orchestration, lyric passages of great beauty, and raucous jazz rhythms - a heady mix that works here. Hardenberger is amazing throughout all three works, playing a variety of instruments, from flugelhorn to standard trumpet to the brilliant high piccolo trumpet, plus a range of mutes and altered trumpets as well. This one's not just for trumpet aficionados, it will intrigue anyone interested in the best of the current contemporary classical scene. --Dan Davis

Dedicated to Christian Lindberg [Hybrid SACD]

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Dedicated to Christian Lindberg [Hybrid SACD]

Manufacturer: Bis
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000OT8K2M
Release Date: 2007-04-24

The British Music Collection: Mark-Anthony Turnage

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The British Music Collection: Mark-Anthony Turnage

Manufacturer: Decca
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Music to Hear
Turnage: Fractured Lines
Turnage: Drowned Out/Kai/Three Screaming Popes/Momentum
Scorched
The Ligeti Project II: Lontano / Atmosphères / Apparitions / San Francisco Polyphony / Concert Românesc - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Jonathan Nott

ASIN: B00005IA6H
Release Date: 2004-03-09

Tracks:

Some Days: Come Away, My Love - Cynthia Clarey
Some Days: Lonely - Cynthia Clarey
Some Days: Tango - Cynthia Clarey
Some Days: Some Days - Cynthia Clarey
Some Days: Blues - Now I Am Absolutely Alone, Forever - Cynthia Clarey
Your Rockaby - Martin Robertson
Night Dances: Prld - Gareth Hulse/Helen Tunstall/John Constable/John Wallace
Night Dances: Dance I - Gareth Hulse/Helen Tunstall/John Constable/John Wallace
Night Dances: Nocturne - Gareth Hulse/Helen Tunstall/John Constable/John Wallace
Night Dances: Dance 2 - Gareth Hulse/Helen Tunstall/John Constable/John Wallace
Dispelling The Fears - Hakan Hardenberger/John Wallace

Tracks:

Blood On The Floor: I. Blood On The Floor - John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: II. Junior Addict - John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: III. Shout - Frank Ollu/John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: IV. Sweet And Decay - Dietmar Wiesner/John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: V. Needles - John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: VI. Elegy For Andy - John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: VII. Cut Up - Uwe Dierksen/John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: VIII. Crackdown - John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson
Blood On The Floor: IX. Dispelling The Fears - John Scofield/Peter Erskine/Martin Robertson

Average customer rating:

SMART
Is anybody ever completely comfortable in these sessions?

Scorched
Mark-Anthony Turnage , John Scofield , Fsr , Hr Big Band , and Wolff
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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The British Music Collection: Mark-Anthony Turnage
Pilgrimage

ASIN: B0000CGP4N
Release Date: 2004-01-13

Tracks:

Make Me 1
Make Me 2
Kubrick
Away With Words
Fat Lip 1
Fat Lip 2
Deadzy
Trim
Nocturnal Mission
Let's Say We Did
The Nag
Cadenza
Gil B643
Protocol

Customer Reviews:

SMART.......2007-07-08

This may not be the best way to hear Scofield but it has really great moments.

Is anybody ever completely comfortable in these sessions?.......2004-01-30

What we have here is an attempt to blend jazz and classical music. And I thought the Third Stream was dead. It seems that contemporary composer Mark-Anthony Turnage has been taken by the music of John Scofield for quite some time and decided to write some material based on it for orchestra and big band, incorporating Sco + bass and drums into the soundscape. Does it work? Not very well, to these ears.

There are, it must be admitted, a few moments when things sound pretty natural, both from the orchestra/big band side as well as the small-group setting. But Sco certainly has sounded a lot freer and hipper in more natural small-group contexts. Even the audience's responses seem somewhat tentative (this was recorded live in concert).

Falls between two stools. Neither fish nor fowl. A Jackalope (not the great jazz improv group, but an amalgam that simply doesn't work).

The problem is that you can't make classical orchestras swing. Just doesn't happen. So what you get is some mildly interesting new music-ish orchestral passages punctuated by fairly standard small-group (Sco, guitar; John Patitucci, e-bass; Peter Erskine, drums) playing (not that this group is in any way deficient; it's just that they seem restrained, unable to completely cut loose). Why not just listen to either, say, Ligeti or Nono or Part, or one of Sco's latest discs?

Tracks:

Mars, The Bringer Of War
Venus, The Bringer Of Peace
Mercury, The Winger Messenger
Jupiter, The Bringer Of Jollity
Saturn, The Bringer Of Old Age
Uranus, The Magician
Neptune, The Mystic
Pluto, The Renewer

Tracks:

Asteroid 4179: Toutatis
Towards Osiris
Ceres
Komarov's Fall

Amazon.com

Is it chance or serendipity that Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic timed their new recording of Holst's The Planets to coincide with the current astronomical upheaval? Though Holst learned of the discovery of Pluto four years before he died, it probably did not occur to him to add another movement, especially since the work's last section, "Neptune, the Mystic," ends in an other-worldly, ethereal fade-out, enhanced by an off-stage wordless women's chorus. He would have been surprised by the latest development in Pluto's status, but undoubtedly pleased that his ultimately incomplete Suite-- which had become more popular than he had expected or thought it deserved--had inspired another British composer, Colin Matthews, to write a successful companion piece, "Pluto, the Renewer," in 2000. Moreover, the Berlin Philharmonic added to Holst's galaxy by commissioning four composers to write a movement each for a Suite called "Asteroids." This is its premiere recording.

The idea of "music of the spheres" goes back to antiquity; perhaps the most famous example of its influence is the slow movement of Beethoven's second "Rasumovsky" String Quartet. Holst gives each of his planets its mythological characteristics: "Mars" is forcefully war-like, "Venus" melodiously peaceful; "Mercury" is a fleet, skittish Scherzo, "Jupiter" rambunctious but suddenly songful. "Saturn" is a soft, solemn march, and "Uranus" murmurs and glitters. The work's most striking element is the scoring. A huge orchestra produces enormous contrasts (underlined by the recording), incredibly colorful sound effects and lush, dense, sonorities, with a lot of melodic doubling and undulating accompanying figures. The sound-world of the "Asteroids" is also based on instrumental colors and effects: whispers, shimmers, crashes and extreme registers. All this is just right for this virtuoso orchestra. Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews:

A worthy musical view of space that eschews bombast.......2007-04-23

This recording will forever be remembered as the commodity that arrived simultanous with Pluto being decertified as a planet in 2006. It appears this was more happenstance than providence or marketing plan by DG since Simon Rattle's notes indicate he made these concert recordings after not conducting "The Planets" for more than 20 years. His notes also indicate his desire to include the second recording of Colin Matthews' "Pluto".

This concert (some call it "live") recording of "The Planets" strikes me as geared more to musical values than bombast, perhaps being more studied than necessary, and/or executed more for refinement than grandiloquence. Whichever one you subscribe to, I think you get the point -- this recording won't compete with those that go for broke boastfully and/or emotionally but it works on the same level as Claudio Abbado's famous Vienna Philharmonic version of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony: it makes music where many others make noise.

My personal favorite recording of "The Planets" is Adrian Boult's 1950s-era mono recording with the London Philharmonic (then called the Promenade Philharmonic) that once arrived on a $1.99 Westminster LP and was wretchedly engineered in fake stereo. That recording is still available in good mono via a Haydn House burn of pretty good quality, made from the LP where you can still hear an occasional rough patch of the needle.

Where Rattle's 2006 recording sets a somewhat stodgy pace so you can hear every instrument and every turn of the score, Boult's old recording goes full speed ahead with the largest possible voice most of the time, made from an aural perspective at the podium. The two recordings do not actually compete with each other; I find each has qualities I enjoy. I like Rattle's new version as a modern alternative. It is well-recorded in a dimension of clarity in league with Rattle's earlier recording of Mahler's "Symphony of the Thousand".

In addition, I find Rattle's toned down version far more palatable than the last modern recording of "The Planets" I listened to, the inadequate, impersonal and shallow version by John Gardiner, also on DG and billed as a stereo spectacular, that is mated to Percy Grainger's noisy "The Warriors". The only thing spectacular about Gardiner's version is how loud the band can play without saying anything. It seems incredible to me someone of Gardiner's stature would record a warhorse like "The Planets" without having any perspective on the music.

Back to this version...the disc 2 rarities, "Asteroid 4179: Toutatis", "Towards Osiris", "Ceres" and "Komarov's Fall", all sound like 1950s serial compositions to me. They add something to the overall project, and are interesting to talk about, but none seem to have much appeal on their own. Only the final "Komarov's Fall" seems really to have a beginning, middle and end. The other remind me of the stuff I used to hear on my PBS station's Friday night "Music from the Heart of Space" series. The second disk also carries a DVD on the making of "The Planets" I haven't witnessed.

So, all things considered, I think this is a good bargain for Amazon shoppers looking for a modern recording of "The Planets". When I wrote this there were a half-dozen vendors selling it used for less than $10. Unless you are really sold on cellophane, getting this two-CD 2006 production for $6.15 -- as one vendor is offering today -- is a good buy regardless of how many issues of "The Planets" you have hanging around your house.

Big names produce lacklustre results.......2006-09-29

A website, a "making-of"enhanced CD feature, a rave review in Gramophone (it is Rattle, after all) - expectations for this issue are highly strung. Unfortunately, the sounds as such do not live up to them. This is a strangely bloodless traversal of the planetary system, with Rattle seemingly determined to go all subtle and turn the music into some kind of Rococo filigree. As in his Mahler recordings, the result can sound deliberate and mannered. Granted, at times it is definitely successful: Venus is simply breathtakingly beautiful, and Mercury's fleet-footedness is dazzling. But Mars is without menace (and without organ too, by the sound of it); Jupiter is unexhilerating, Uranus just OK but nothing more (and again, not a trace of the organ even in that spectacular upward glissando); Saturn and Neptune, finally, are seriously lacking in any sense of mystery. I suspect the recording itself is partly to blame; EMI engineering is, in my experience, rarely top notch, and the Berlin Philharmonie notoriously difficult acoustically speaking. On CD, there is lack of detail, the dynamic range does not expand quite as widely as one would hope, and strings can sound strangely lacklustre and thin. Worse though is the distancing of the woodwinds, who at times sound as if they were sent out of the hall to keep the female choir company. Then again, that choir, sounds too near rather than distant.
Overall, and taking into account engineering deficits, this may be an acceptable account of The Planets, but it is at best a very pale cousin to the top choice readings by Dutoit, Gardiner or Andrew Davis. Unlike those, however, it offers a bonus in Colin Matthews's Pluto, and four additional "Asteroids" of yet more recent date. Though the promotion of contemporary composers by such a venerable ensemble is laudable, I must admit that for me these extras did very little to heighten the appeal of this set. Pluto starts even before Neptune has quite faded out, but presenting it as an integral part of the Holst only furthers the impression that it has nowhere near the stature of the other Planets. Like three of the four Asteroids, it presents the listener with a depersonalized, generic modernism that relies heavily on extreme sound effects (harmonics, sul ponticello), jarring transitions, unrelieved dissonance, random glissandi on harps or celesta, distant percussion rumblings, and general forgettability. You'll find this kind of music in any B-horror movie soundtrack. The one exception is Turnage's "Ceres", which has just enough rhythmic and harmonic contour to sustain the impression of architectural coherence, and is indeed an interesting piece (though it still remains very much in the shade of Holst's genius). Only for die-hard Rattlites.

Space Junk.......2006-09-28

Rattle disappoints in a perfunctory reading of one of the most familar of concert warhorses. Mars is a bit "oogie-boogie" scary, not terrifying. Venus sulks in a warm bath of ultra-rubato. Rattle himself seems slightly embarrassed by the great central hymn of Jupiter, calling it "a nostalgic look at an England that never existed - the England of cricket fields and warm beer and bad cooking". Well, then - guess that shows US. But the most egregrious offense is cobbling together unwanted bits to, in Rattle's own words, "make a calling card for the orchestra". This is essentially make-work for a group of completely unrelated compositional styles and the results are underwhelming in the extreme. It's bad enough that Pluto has been "downgraded" from planetary status - it now has to suffer the insult of being tagged "The Renewer" (for entirely obscure reasons) and having a tacky, alternately whispy and annoying six-minute noise-bomb associated with it. (The composer, Colin Matthews, is far better known as the producer of the Nonesuch recording of the Gorecki Third Symphony than as an orchestral composer.) Adding this piece after the ephemeral fade-out of Neptune makes as much sense as sticking chrome-plated plastic arms on the Venus d'Milo.

None of the other bits (specially commissioned, and boy do they sound like it) would make it on their own merits. There's a 10-minute video of Rattle discussing all this, but even that wears its welcome out quickly, too. (Hubble photos mixed with film of Rattle wearing the world's baggiest shirt match the uneven tone of this entire package.)

I give it three stars for curiosity value only. The "Planets" themselves aren't anything special - there doesn't seem to be any reason for this other than to promote the add-ons. Steinberg's recording is far more involving, as are any one of Boult's instead.

Great Recording.......2006-09-25

In short this is the best recording since Karajan's 1981 recording on DG

The orchestra plays without fault...the ensemble is so clean it is amazing.

GREAT SOUND, GREAT PLAYING: CHALLENGING COUPLINGS.......2006-09-20

Current scientific thinking seems to have relegated Pluto from the list of fully-fledged planets in our Solar System. It might have been better if these discs had followed received opinion and moved Colin Matthews Pluto to the second disc of other Plutons. It is a fine and interesting piece in its own right, but it completely destroys Holst's planned, considered and magical fade-out to Neptune with the female chorus's eternally alternating chords disappearing into the farthest reaches of space.

That said, this is an enterprising pair of discs. Most people will obviously buy them for the Holst work but the new works, specially commissioned by Rattle (apart from Pluto) for this project, are an interesting collection of Plutons and a substantial bonus. Saariaho's Toutatis is the most impressive: she seems to have listened to and assimilated Holst's Planets and filtered them through her own refined orchestral sensibilities. The result is a delicate piece with evocative woodwind textures that structurally reflects the complex orbit of the asteroid after which it is named. The Pintscher is a more overtly exciting item with a wonderfully played virtuoso trumpet cadenza. Mark Anthony Turnage's Ceres is perhaps more familiar territory with its jazzy syncopations and woodwind colourings typical of the composer. Brett Dean, an ex-viola player with the orchestra, contributes Komarov's Fall which has an arch structure leading to and from a big climax, but maybe overstays its welcome a touch. The second disc also includes some CD-ROM material to play on your computer - well produced but it might have benefited from a little less chat and a bit more of the rehearsal sequence.

But what of the main work which will, after all, be the chief reason to purchase for most people?

If Holst later came to find the rich panoply of sounds and textures in the Suite almost embarrassing as he sought a more sparse and ascetic sound world, there is no denying his supreme mastery over orchestration throughout his career. And the Berlin Philharmonic fully live up to all the demands made of them here. With all the skills of the EMI engineers to help them, there is so much on this disc which is ravishing to the ear. From the perfectly voiced and balanced big full orchestra discords of Mars and Saturn to the softest and most exquisite string pianissimos in Venus and Neptune, this is demonstration quality stuff both for sound and playing. The only quibble I can find is that the celeste, magical in Holst's writing for Venus and Neptune, is placed so far forward as to make it almost a concerto instrument.

The performance itself probably comes off worst in the familiar warhorses. Mars is a tad too fast and a bit matter of fact, so that the threatening, disrupting 5/4 rhythm becomes just insistent - rather like the passage in the first movement of Shostakovich's Leningrad that Bartok took to task in his Concerto for Orchestra. The separate sections of Jupiter don't quite cohere into a whole and the `Big Tune' sounds a little as if it's placed where it is because that's what the composer's great friend, Vaughan Williams, would have done.

On the plus side, though, is as breathtakingly beautiful a Venus as you'll hear. The horn steals in after the violence of Mars like a refugee from Weber's Oberon: the woodwind chords are balanced perfectly: and the solo violin and cello are sweetness personified. Mercury has the lightness of step of a Mendelssohn Scherzo with the subtlety of the rhythmic writing for timps and celeste perfectly realised. Saturn is perhaps the highpoint of Rattle's performance, profoundly moving and achieving a climax of huge weight and intensity. The harmonic suspension just before the beginning of the march is superbly judged by Rattle and his players provide a superb luminous quality for the coda. Uranus shows off Rattle's ability to lift and bounce rhythms, though the famous organ glissando at the climax goes for nothing. Neptune is a wonderful study in pianissimo writing and playing - if a little compromised by the prominence given to the celeste. Vaughan Williams must have had this movement in mind when he wrote the finale of his Sixth Symphony.

Two discs for the price of one and Rattle's choice of challenging couplings is more than justified. They come with a performance of The Planets that will certainly ravish the ear and, for the most part, satisfy the mind, too.

Average customer rating:

Torn
An Exciting turn for Turnage
Another Failed Fusion Attempt
Outstanding 90's composition for ensemble and jazz soloists
Jazz influence on cutting-edge modern classical music

Turnage: Blood on the Floor

Manufacturer: Decca
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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The Decca Records Store | Specialty Stores | Music
ASIN: B00000IP7F
Release Date: 2000-05-09

Tracks:

Blood On The Floor
Junior Addict
Shout
Sweet And Decay
Needles
Elegy For Andy
Cut Up
Crackdown
Dispelling The Fears

Customer Reviews:

Torn.......2000-08-09

I feel torn between my fondness for Turnage's music and the partial disappointment that this piece of music represents to me. Several movements of this piece are extremely exciting and a joy to experience. Others--the ones that feature a large proportion of improvised material--make for nice listening once or thrice, but lose their appeal quickly. One of Turnage's strong points as a composer is his marvelous talent for development. When, as in this piece, he leaves that development up to others, it leaves me wanting. As always, Turnage's orchestration is beautifully colorful and distinctive, and the movements run the gamut from placid to raucous. This was certainly a worthwhile experiment on his part, but I think that, when he places such a dependence for musical contributions on other artists, Turnage sells his potential short. I do suggest that you check out this recording, but I cannot give it my best review. I can only wait for more recordings by this wonderful composer.

An Exciting turn for Turnage.......2000-07-24

If you are a captive of categories, you will not find this music to your liking. Turnage takes his subject for this work (the life and death of his chemically-addicted brother, Andrew) seriously. And in order to recreate the world his brother inhabited, he draws for inspiration on sources outside art music -- especially the more adventurous reaches of jazz. The result is tough stuff, indeed. For anybody familiar with his work, this should come as no surprise, however. Turnage is the sort of contemporary composer for whom the euphemism "uncompromising" was invented. My opinion, as one who cherishes music that dares to flirt with disaster, is that the extraordinary rhythmic vitality alone of Blood on the Floor is worth the price of admission.

It's certain that, even more than most, this music is only as good as the performance of it, since improvisation by the soloists -- all world class jazz musicians on the CD -- is crucial to its effect. This performance truly is wonderful. Guitarist John Scofield is quoted in the CD booklet as speculating that "this really is the music of the future." The opinion is perhaps a trifle grandiose, but it seems likely that "trans-genre" composition by top-notch young composers like Turnage will become more common rather than less as the sort of summing-up and transfiguring that occurred in the arts at the beginning of the 20th Century occurs again in a significant way at this, the beginning of the 21st Century.

At the very least, Blood on the Floor is a welcome addition to trans-genre composition, in the excellent company of Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto and Milhaud's La Creation du Monde, to name only two of the the century's award winners in this challenging category.

Another Failed Fusion Attempt.......2000-06-17

I was at the 2000 Ojai Festival where the performance of this piece was awaited with high anticipation. Turnage was there, and gave a talk before the concert. Sir Simon Rattle conducted it. Reaction seemed to fall into two groups. Some felt it was bracing and refreshing to see jazz and blues melted together with a symphony orchestra, but they tended to effuse more about the sax, guitar and drums than they did about the piece as a whole. The professionals in the audience were decidedly less enthusiastic, and regarded the melting pot as producing an ugly sticky mess. One composer told me he thought Blood on the Floor was over-long (72 minutes) and self-indulgent. My feeling was that the piece was sprawling, undisciplined and unstructured, and lacked a common thread of organization, which makes a piece of serious music. Blood on the Floor is really Nine Studies for Blues Band and Orchestra, which have their moments and can be digested one at a time, if you are in the mood. But, as a new direction for 21st Century classical music, it is no more successful than the L.A. Philharmonic Zappa concerts of the '70s. It is an irritating curiosity. (Thomas Ades' "Asyla" was also performed at Ojai, and was received much better, as it is a much better piece!).

Outstanding 90's composition for ensemble and jazz soloists.......2000-03-13

Attempts to fuse "classical" music with more modern forms, especially when they include electric guitar, can often prove disastrous. Not so with Mark-Anthony Turnage. "Blood On The Floor" uses a large ensemble with jazz soloists on saxaphone, drumkit and electric guitar, plus solo turns for flute, trombone and two trumpets. The theme of illegal drugs (which tragically killed the composer's brother) is not all-important, but the music is certainly harrowing. Jazzy and bluesy, even rocking in places, and including celesta and, at one point, plucked piano strings, "Blood On The Floor" nevertheless completely avoids gimmicks. Not one for the cheerful summer evenings, but certainly one for people who want emotion from their music or who want to hear what the cutting edge of modern composition sounds like.

Jazz influence on cutting-edge modern classical music.......2000-03-09

Turnage is definitely one of the greatest living classical composers. In Blood on the Floor, he merges his dark and moody orchestral work with three Jazz soloists, including the legendary John Scofield. The result is definitely not easy listening; rather a disturbing and spooky vision of the dark side of urban life.

Amazon.com

A Shakespeare Celebration is the companion CD to a Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare birthday concert supervised by Stephen Warbeck, Head of Music of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Featuring 10 exceptionally acclaimed composers from the classical, jazz, film, and theater worlds, some of the pieces are newly recorded from past RSC productions, others specially composed and more loosely inspired. Interspersed on separate tracks are short extracts from the plays performed by Malcolm Storry and Harriet Walter. Warbeck features his Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, and a setting that captures the "strange beauty" of "The Death of Ophelia," to which Mark-Anthony Turnage adds an unsettling "Ophelia's Lament." Similarly bleak is Django Bates's "A Glooming Peace," commemorating Romeo and Juliet. Shaun Davey wrote a fine score for the film of Twelfth Night, and here offers the sad beauty of "Winter's End." Also inspired by A Winter's Tale, but incorporating sampling and contemporary music techniques, is "Lullaby Exit Bear!" by Huw Warren. Other tracks range from Broadway melodies and Jason Carr's "Poem Unlimited" to the colorful exuberance of Anne (The Full Monty) Dudley's "Strange Capers." As in Shakespeare's plays, here is the whole of life's rich pageant, making a rewarding if unavoidably fragmented celebration. --Gary S. Dalkin

Turnage: Drowned Out/Kai/Three Screaming Popes/Momentum

Average customer rating:

Required listening!

Turnage: Drowned Out/Kai/Three Screaming Popes/Momentum

Manufacturer: EMI Int'l
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Kurtag: Gruppen, Grabsteinfur Fur Stephan, Stelle, Claudio Abbado [Import]
Music to Hear
The British Music Collection: Mark-Anthony Turnage
John Adams: The Dharma at Big Sur/My Father Knew Charles Ives
Esa Pekka Salonen: Wing on Wing

ASIN: B00000DNT8
Release Date: 1994-10-11

Tracks:

Drowned Out For Large Orchestra
Kai For Solo Cello And Ensemble - Ulrich Heinen
Three Screaming Popes After Francis Bacon For Large Orchestra
Momentum For Orchestra

Customer Reviews:

Required listening!.......2004-10-06

For my money, Mark-Anthony Turnage is the best composer the UK's produced since Benjamin Britten; and if he keeps up his standards he might exceed Britten in significance. Admittedly, his music is not for everyone, it's often brash and noisy, filled with saxophones and percussion. But it's also superbly crafted, not only in terms of its dynamic shape--the overall form--but also on the level of melody. Even the noisiest of it is melodic in a way that audiences willing to give it a chance can follow. Drowned Out, for example, starts with a clashing introduction, but hidden in the introductory chord is the falling figure which is shortly revealed as the main motivic material in the piece. An extended theme in the cellos, later joined in some terrific orchestration by all the strings plus tuba, is created out of this motivic unit in traditional ways so that anyone is aware of the unity of the theme, even if they can't describe its creation through processes of inversion, extension, etc. Most importantly, it's a compelling melody, perfect for the mood Turnage is trying to create.

Three Screaming Popes (great title!--from a series of paintings by a modern English artist) is for me the best work on a CD full of terrific pieces. Jazzy and sinister and colorful, it's a wild orchestral romp like the Rite of Spring, updated. Kai, for cello and ensemble, shares the sound world of Three Screaming Popes, with the sinister saxophone wailing away like a demented jazzer in a heroin daze. Turnage really shines with the orchestration here, making a smaller ensemble sound like a full orchestra. Only in the final work, Momentum, does the CD in fact lose Momentum. The piece starts out in a very promising way, but about halfway through takes an unexpected turn into a very explicitly jazzy passage that doesn't come off as effectively as similar passages in other works. Momentum doesn't quite jell, and in fact doesn't come to the thunderous conclusion we're lead to expect from the title--around the 6th minute of a 10 minute piece it loses energy and never picks it up again. But if it's a miscue, it's one that can easily be forgiven due to the strength of the rest of the CD. If you have adventurous tastes at all, you must buy this CD.

Average customer rating:

Not entirely convincing, despite the good performances

Turnage: Fractured Lines
Leonard Slatkin , Evelyn Glennie , Christian Lindberg , and BBC Symphony Orchestra
Manufacturer: Chandos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
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Music to Hear
The British Music Collection: Mark-Anthony Turnage

ASIN: B00006NSE5
Release Date: 2002-11-26

Customer Reviews:

Not entirely convincing, despite the good performances.......2003-12-17

Mark-Anthony Turnage and his brassy, jazz-inflected music have been major players in British concert life over the last two decades. With a recently televised opera, The Silver Tassie, and a variety of concert works over the last few years, his profile has remained consistently high. Continuing this trend, Leonard Slatkin and the BBC Symphony Orchestra have recorded here four recent works for contrasting ensembles.

Another Set To, the disc opener, is a brief concertino for trombone and orchestra, expanded from the brass piece Set To. Its nine minutes of vigorous dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra are lively and entertaining, and navigated with ease by the composer's preferred soloist, the inimitable Christian Lindberg.

More ambitious is the orchestra piece, Silent Cities, based on a melody by Turnage's regular collaborator, the jazz guitarist John Scofield. This work, dedicated to the memory of Michael Tippett, was inspired by a visit to the graveyards of the First World War (the 'Silent Cities' of the title). It alternates between mournful bluesy melodies and brusque orchestral violence, before concluding quietly. This recording is of the recent revised version, which clears up some of the problems with the original version, though I still find the orchestration sometimes becomes overly cluttered.

Four-Horned Fandango is another work that was revised for this recording, though in this case the revisions were much more drastic, as Turnage felt the original version to be a total failure. The work pits four solo horns against an orchestra of strings and percussion, and flows from a slow beginning to a dramatic climax, before the energy subsides in a slow, eerie conclusion. The fandango elements are kept mainly in the background, and the orchestral writing is of a more delicate, restrained nature than typical in Turnage, and I find this entirely to the work's benefit--this is probably the strongest piece on the disc.

Less impressive is Fractured Lines, a concerto for two percussionists and orchestra. Once again performed in a major revision, this work takes a tune by the jazz drummer Peter Erskine (the unpitched percussion soloist here; Evelyn Glennie takes the pitched percussion) and garlands it with variations. Two cadenzas, the first for Glennie, the second for Erskine, interrupt the work's vigorous progress, before it closes quietly. I found this work felt a little too routine to really grip me, though the closing bars are impressive.