David Sawer Rumpelstiltskin, April\March - Martyn Brabbins, BCMG, NMC

From NMC specialists in modern British music, David Sawer Rumpelstitlskin, with Martyn Brabbins conducting the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the team who premiered the ballet in 2010 and also the Rumpelstiltkin Suite (2011) featured here, recorded at a performance at the Wigmore Hall in 2013.  Rumpelstiltskin was one of the BCMG's most successful commissions : this commercial release has long been awaited.

Rumpelstiltskin is a fairy tale so grim even Disney stays clear. A bankrupt miller fools bailiffs, claiming that his daughter can spin straw into gold.  Up pops an ugly dwarf, who staves off the crisis, but keeps the girl prisoner. Though the miller was lying about the girl's ability to spin gold from straw, the Dwarf makes the scam come true.  The King is fooled and makes the girl his queen. When the dwarf returns to collect his payoff, the the girl steals the secret of the spell and gets rid of him by revealing his name. He shatters into many pieces. The girl's as dishonest as her father was. She thinks she's entitled to riches she didn't earn, and destroys the outsider to whom she owed her good fortune. What kind of moral does this tell? Sawer's take on the tale is uncompromising : it's a parable for modern times.

The fully staged original (Stewart Laing) presented the tale with stark stylization, the set a box-like structure which emphasized the claustrophia : scams are being woven, caught up in their own mad logic. Even then, though, music was integral to the narrative.  Members of the BCMG moved on stage in and out of the set, the action standing still at critical points to highlight solo players. Effectively, instruments as singers, telling the story without words. The idea of weaving and stalking flowed from the structure of the score. One ensemble with muffled tuba, trumpet, horn, clarinets, oboe, flute, bassoon, bass - dark, ominous - represented one force. The other, smaller ensemble led by harp, with violin, viola, cello represented something more fragile. At first, the girl, but later the Dwarf, destroyed when she loses her innocence. Both groups merge and change like a puzzle "spun" from sound on different levels. Interpretively, this expresses the changing alliances in the plot, the good becoming evil, the strong becoming weak.

Sawer's Rumpelstilstkin Suite concentrates the intensity still further. In the first movement, "The Idle Boast", tuba and bassoon suggest the miller's bombast, and probably also the Dwarf's pride. Trumpets call out, "naming" the miller with sounds of alarm, much as the girl eventually names the Dwarf. As the spell takes hold, the harp, winds and strings, evoke the sound of busy spinning - percussive strikes imitating the shuttle of the spinning wheel flying frantically back and forth. Gradually, the pile of gold rises higher and higher til perhaps we can't see the girl anymore behind the wall of booming orchestral sound. Trumpets announce "The Wedding and Coronation" but what are the baleful sounds of bassoon and clarinet telling us ? The procession goes on its merry way, figures repeating as if in perpetual motion. Bassoon and tuba dance along : as long as surfaces shine, no-one questions. All must be gold.  "The Guessing Game" is brief but tense, strings duelling brass and winds. In the "The Dwarf Alone", the mood is darker : the harp at its lowest register, the brass and winds pacing tense patterns, as if the Dwarf was stomping his feet.  The trumpet blows raspberries, cruelly mocking the Dwarf's dilemma. Rumpelstiltskin does his last dance, clumsy, grotesques, with strident  interjections from the brass, long, high pitched screams and turbulent circular lines suggesting upheaval. The sharp percussive sounds which once suggested the shuttle of the spinning wheel return.  The Dwarf dies but the girls keeps spinning her scam.

Cat's-eye (1986) is an early work, but already Sawer's distinctive feel for dramatic dialectic is apparent. Instruments operate in pairs and in larger groups, with piano and harp at the centre, interacting with nervous, jerky frisson, in constantly changing patterns, each of the seven sections developing what went before. Sustained chords contrast with staccato, moments of near-silence with explosive outburst. Like the sense of perpetual motion in the Rumpelstiltskin Suite, Cat's-Eye generates and regenerates itself with inventive energy.

With April\March (2106), Sawer adapts concepts of time and time reversal, to create an intricate puzzle.  Note the backslash in the title ! Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges's short story A survey of the Works of Herbert Quain,  Sawer experiments with ideas of symmetry, rules subverted and reformulated, sequences moving backwards as well as forward. A melody is heard as if from a distant past, but its lines blur, as if it were being heard back to front.  "Time", writes Steph Power for NMC, "is key to Sawer's music on many levels. It's the precision of his timing, allied with an instinct for structural proportaion and elegance that enables him to explore oppositional tensions with such verve. Boldness and clarity of texture, surprise, economy of ecxpression and an ear for the catchily skew-whiff combine in ways that see-saw between equilibrium and dis-equilbrium, while always remaining cogent  and direct".  Though this music is accessible to listen to, it isn't easy to play.  Martyn Brabbins and The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group perform it with the precision and idiomatic panache it deserves.

Howard Skempton - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner NMC Roderick Williams

Another hit for NMC, specialists in modern British music: Howard Skempton The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with Roderick Williams and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. This recording breaks new ground, its appeal reaching beyond  new-music circles.

Samuel Taylor  Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner intrigues because there's nothing else quite like it in English verse. Though its tone suggests ancient saga, its subject was unequivocally modern, in the sense that it caught the Zeitgeist of the Romantic era's fascination with the "Gothic". The Mariner breaks unspoken  rules and kills the Albatross. He and his shipmates are cursed, dying of thirst though there's "water, water everywhere" around them.  Two centuries later, the Rime still haunts. The Mariner's journey is a descent into the darker unconscious. Like the wedding guest, we "fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand!"

Howard Skempton's setting grows from the ballad so symbiotically it seems a "living thing". The vocal part reflects the strange obsessive nature of the text, which draws the listener in as if hypnotized.  The cadences rise upwards and down, at a pace which suggests a hard march. Coleridge began the poem while hiking on the moors.  Roderick Williams is a remarkable narrator, capturing the demented undercurrents in the verse. The lines run like a form of Sprechstimme, not recitation, yet not quite singing. This nightmare does not let a voice take full flight. Williams has a gift for natural, direct communication, without theatrical histrionics. He makes us sympathetic to the Mariner as a mortal man, which makes his fate all the more tragic.

The voice is accompanied at first only by the cello, legato drawn drone-like, as if it were some ancient, primitive instrument, or, indeed, a force of nature, like a sinister wail.  The cello carries the music for a while, until other voices join in in subtle combinations. The double bass quietly murmurs, suggesting sinister depths.  The viola leads the violins, an aptly quirky reverse of "natural order". When the ship is becalmed -- "As idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean" -- the music hovers almost imperceptibly, as if listening out for a breeze. When things change, the piano and other players create a tumult.  When the visionary figures appear, the high violins at last take flight.  Coleridge  writes movement into his lines, which Skempton translates into abstract sound.  We listen, as if spellbound, to the strange, unworldly atmosphere.  Maurice and Sheila Millward, who suggested the setting and commissioned the piece, had insight. Skempton's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a remarkable work which needs to become part of the canon of British music.

Like an earworm, this music burrows into your subconciousness.  The cadences in the text haunt the music, reflecting, perhaps, the tides of the ocean, and the pulse of the human body.  You're mesmerized, absorbing the surreal atmosphere so it seems almost natural. Though you're hypnotized, almost against your will, you keep listening, fascinated by the detail and inventiveness concealed within the relentless pulse.  The wedding guest must have felt the same way! It's a tribute to Skempton's skill that his music adds greatly to the effect of the poetry, enhancing its effects without overwhelming its strange personality.


On this disc, Skempton's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is paired with Only the Sound Remains, taking as a starting point an idea from Edward Thomas's The Mill Water.   The mill is gone, and its sounds have fallen still.  Yet "In calm moonlight, Gloom infinite, The sound comes surging in upon the sense:".  Thus there's no need here for a voice part: the orchestral sounds evoke the sounds that once might have been heard, though the men and machines who made them are now long gone.  John Fallas's booklet notes for NMC explain further. "Skempton's pervasive but pervasively disguised/transformed nine-note scales are the secret code generating everything, from the spare, angular counterpoint into dramatic minor chords or sudden outbreaks of warm, major key consonance". The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in particular is a tour de force, not at all easy to perform, so treasure this recording. It will become a classic.

NMC Brian Elias Electra Mourns

At the Wigmore Hall, Brian Elias's Oboe Quintet coincided with the release of a new recording of Elias's work from NMC Records, specialists in modern British music.

The title piece, Electra Mourns, won Elias a British Composer Award. It received its premiere in 2012, with the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Clark Rundell, with soloists Susan Bickley and Nicholas Daniel  for whom the piece was created. .  Electra mourns is a dramatic scena, with the stylized formality of Greek tragedy. Electra is alone, without hope, in hostile circumstances.   Bickley sings the long, keening lines expressing Electra's desolation. But Orestes is not actually dead. Daniel's cor anglais surrounds the vocal part, mimicking its curving lines. Voice and instrument in duet are heard against a backdrop of strings, punctuated by piano.  Functioning like Greek chorus, the orchestra comments, wordlessly, sharp angular outbursts suggesting alarm. High textures sear, like flailing whips.  Yet the cor anglais continues, unperturbed, its sensuous richness evoking elusive mysteries.   When the strings go still, its chords grow strong and clear. Electra listens.  Bickley's voice intones at the bottom of her range, then soars.    


Electra Mourns is enhanced by Geranos, from 1985, here performed by Psappha, conducted by Nicholas Kok, who first performed it in 2003. Both pieces take their cue from Greek legend but take on different form. Geranos is tightly constructed and taut, evoking the idea of dance as athletic discipline. The slow middle movement refers to a ritual dance of mourning.  The puzzles and mazes of Harrison Birtwistle naturally spring to mind, but Elias's style  is his own.  Sparkling textures (piccolo, strings, metallic percussion) illuminate the third and final movement.  Theseus was said to have danced on escaping the Labyrinth. Geranos ends with lucid, clear tones. A "geranos" is a crane, flying free.  

While  the texts for Meet Me in the Green Glen are by John Clare (1793-1864), Elias's setting is minimal, almost "Grecian".  Roderick Williams and Susan Bickley sing without accompaniment, their plaintive lines evoking timeless plainchant rather than quasi-folk song.  The unadorned beauty of the singing is enhanced by a slight echo effect, as if the recording was made in a silent chamber.  Perhaps the "Green Glen" is a tomb-like time warp. The poems refer to the past, to "Now" and"Hesperus, thy twinkling bray" that "tolls the traveller on his way that Earth shall be forgiven".  A fascinating mix of quiet and disquiet, utterly modern in spirit.  .

The five songs of Meet Me in the Green Glen (2009)  are followed by the five songs of Once I did breathe another's breath  for low voice and piano, premiered by Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside at the Ludlow English Song Weekend in 2012.  The texts are more disparate, and the cycle less coherent.  Ludlow began as a tribute to Gerald Finzi whose  affinity for Tudor and Stuart poetry few can match.  Roderick Williams, nonetheless, is superlative, with such a gift for communication that anything he sings is well worth listening to.   Electra Mourns is the third of NMC's Brian Elias recordings, and a good addition to the catalogue of British music.  

Simon Holt a table of noises NMC

Simon Holt is one of the really big names in British music, highly regarded by those who listen live and read scores, so this release from NMC, specialists in modern British music, is particularly welcome.  a table of noises follows on from A Book of Colours, Boots of lead, feet of clay and Era Madrugada, all from NMC. Eventually, more of Holt's work will be readily available on disc because it rewards repeat listening. Holt's music isn't noisy. Like good poetry, it reveals itself in quiet, unhurried contemplation.

The title piece, a table of noises, (2007)  refers to the table at which Holt's great uncle Ashworth worked, where he kept tools readily to hand, meticulously organized.  Ashworth was a taxidermist who stuffed birds and small countryside animals. There's something surreal about taxidermy.  It brings the woodland under the control of the parlour.  But can you be decorous with a dead badger in the living room, staring at you through glass eyes, lifelike but immobile?  Taxidermy is  fiddly, messy work and quite unnatural, but strangely obsessive. Great Uncle Ash was disabled so he kept his tools together within easy reach, meticulously organized.  Picture that table in your imagination.  It's a metaphor for Holt's  music. It's strictly defined but the very confinement generates resourceful adaptation. 

Simple means are used for maximum effect. Colin Currie, for whom the piece was commissioned,  plays a variety of small instruments, played in groups of three.  The sound is pared down to essentials, very methodical and down to earth.  Hence the jaunty rhythms and unpretentious sounds. Do we hear a tin whistle in the mix ? Or a squeaky toy?  Currie plays fairly conventional instruments like glockenspiel and xylophone, but the effects are decidedly quirky.  Hammers and chisels clattering as if in a workshop, interspersed by silences and odd rhythmic progressions.  a table of noises is wacky but tightly organized.  It feels like a solemn but vivacious dance. Clog dancing springs to mind. The rhythms are jaunty yet "grounded" since the dancers are possibly drunk and club-footed, and wear heavy boots. Why should athletes have all the fun?  Holt turns rough and ready into art form. 


Flights of fancy, like the piccolos calling above the ensemble, inject a wayward spirit of eccentric freedom.  Why did Victorians preserve dead roadkill and pose them in anthromorphic positions?  Perhaps we are in the lab of a mad scientist whose inventions seem bizarre but might have an inner logic. As Currie hammers away, the orchestra produces equally inventive effects - booming bass trombone and tuba, like the pipes of a funeral organ gone mad. Some of the ten sections have descriptive titles, like "Skennin' Mary", a neighbour whose glass eye spun when she became angry, which would have fascinated a taxidermist who kept collections of glass eyes for his specimens.  Four sections, though, are simply "ghosts", reminding us that what we hear might not be what we assume. Holt's inventive use of sound also reminds me of Third World musicians who make music with whatever comes to hand, like sticks and rocks.  Percussion may be the most ancient form of music.   That's a compliment, since a composer who can work with humble sources understands innately what makes good music.   Holt's a table of noises is also fun. The exact background doesn't matter, since we can feel the sense of adventure in its inventive sounds, and relate to the good natured, if oddball, sense of humour. 

Macabre humour, too, in St Vitus in the Kettle (2008) a brief but tightly structured miniature which begins as a wild dance, whipped by insanely high piccolos,  haunted by dark, sepulchral block chords.  For a moment silence descends but the manic, energetic rhythms return with even greater force.  Do we hear in these bubbling rhythms the sound of  boiling water?  St Vitus in legend was a child martyred by being boiled in a kettle but who leapt unharmed and intact, being saved by faith.  Medieval peasants found cathartic outlet by dancing orgies in his honour, hence the term "St Vitus Dance" to describe derangement. 

St Eulalia of Merida, the ostensible subject of Holt's Witness to a snow miracle (2005) was martyred by the Romans by being buried under hot coals. She rebuked her persecutors to the end, when snow miraculously descended, while her soul ascended to heaven.   Thus the cadenza with which the piece begins, with Chloé Hanslip with wild but determined frenzy.  Does this suggest religious mania or the equally fanatical mania of her persecutors?  Either way, the violin expresses extremes of pitch and tempi, supported by screaming woodwinds  and contrasted with ominous brass and percussion.  Harps  and celeste sparkle, suggesting snowfall, and divine intervention. Eventually the violin soars upwards, as the pounding brass grows muffled. The heat of mania is silenced, under a blanket of snow.  As so often with Holt, textures are built up through meticulous process, every note clearly defined.  Medieval audiences adapted reality into  highly coloured, exaggerated tales like these to suit their own needs.  Simon Holt adapts them into abstract music, but music that connects to human passion and emotion.

The Hallé was conducted by Nicholas Collon.