Editorial Reviews "Silent Cities", which was inspired by a visit to the graveyards on the Somme and named after Kipling's description of that same place, is a far more somber affair. In complete contrast, "Four-Horned Fang" which follows on is a riotous tour de force for four horns and orchestra. Despite its title, "Four-Horned Fandango" is not an overtly Spanish piece, rather it contains more subtle references such as the occasional castanet flutter and percussive strings. The disc is rounded off with "Fractured Lines", Turnage's double percussion concerto which features Evelyn Glennie and Peter Erskine; two better soloists would be impossible to find. Based on a tune written by Erskine himself, the concerto is a energetic, nay unstoppable work. A thrilling disc from start to finish. --Rebecca Agnew
Amazon.co.uk Review
Fractured Lines, the first CD of music by Mark-Anthony Turnage on the Chandos label, features the premiere recordings of four of the composer's most recent orchestral works. "Another Set To" gets the disc off to an exhilarating start. Described by Turnage himself in the informative sleeve notes as "quite argumentative…optimistic and extrovert", "Another Set To" features trombone soloist Christian Lindberg whose growling yet extraordinarily agile playing goads and taunts the orchestra from start to finish.
Turnage: Fractured Lines, Music, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Leonard Slatkin, Evelyn Glennie, Christian Lindberg, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Concerto, Orchestral, Orchestral & Symphonic, Orchestral Music
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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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ASIN: B00006NSE5 Release Date: 2002-11-26 |
Customer Reviews:
Not entirely convincing, despite the good performances.......2003-12-17
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.
This disc showcases Turnage's strengths and weaknesses in equal measure, but Four-Horned Fandango suggests a possible avenue for further development in his musical style. The performances are uniformly good, and a special word of praise must be given to the horn soloists in the Fandango.
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