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World music CD DVD shop and Classic distribution
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ID: CC2019 (EAN: 5023581201920) | 1 CD | DDD Released in: 2008
- LABEL:
- Oboe Classics
- Subcollection:
- Piano
- Composers:
- ROXBURGH, Edwin
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Interprets:
- GOODEY, Paul (oboe) | HAWORTH, Philip | LIU, Xiaodi (oboe) | MAYS, Sally (piano)
- Ensembles:
- Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM ensemble)
- Conductors:
- ROXBURGH, Edwin
- Other info:
The 24-page full colour CD booklet has a 6,000 word programme note in English
with full details of each track, and extensive information about the composer and about his use of multiphonics.
There are biographies of all the players and many photographs.
Introduction by Jeremy Polmear:
This CD is a collection of music by a single composer, mostly for a single combination of instruments (oboe and piano), yet the sheer variety of the music is immediately apparent. Most obviously perhaps, is the the use of multiphonics on the oboe, which are central to Shadow Play, are used extensively in most of the other pieces, but not at all in Aulodie or Cantilena. The harmonic and rhythmic complexity of the pieces also varies - from the virtuosic Antares to the touching simplicity of Cantilena. Furthermore, these pieces cover a period of nearly 40 years, yet there is no obvious trend of an evolving style during this period. What kind of composer is Edwin Roxburgh, really? What labels can we apply?
Roxburgh himself hates labels. For example, he says "I was never a serial composer. Serial composition is in any case just one way of expressing something; to add a label to it isn't really the point. And the 'neo-' label - why spend the time regenerating characteristics of the past? By all means borrow from the past, and also from the musical clichés which surround us in the present - embrace these things, but transform them into something of your own. As a composer, you need to add your own brick to the wall of the evolution of music."
A composer's creative process is notoriously hard to define, but Roxburgh puts it thus: "I start with the idea for a piece, and then I look for the vocabulary with which to express that idea. It's different for every composition; I'm looking at modes of harmony, of rhythm, of modulation that are going to be able to express that idea. And at physics, too; the physics of the oboe, and its chords, these can be part of the vocabulary, an exciting area to explore."
It is this willingness to define his artistic vocabulary afresh for the needs of each composition that gives authenticity to Edwin Roxburgh’s music, and perhaps explains the remark made by his teacher Nadia Boulanger that Edwin was 'the new Stravinsky'. It is also interesting to note that Roxburgh describes Schoenberg and Fauré as two of his musical 'grandparents'. Boulanger was a pupil of Fauré and another teacher was Luigi Dallapiccola, a pupil of Schoenberg.
We can also see evidence in this CD of the source of some of Edwin Roxburgh's ideas. People feature prominently, especially oboists. Elegy was written in memory of Janet Craxton (who can be heard on Oboe Classics CC2011). Its use of multiphonics would perhaps not have enthused its dedicatee ("I'm not Holliger", she told one composer); yet the quiet, warm, unselfish spirit of Janet the player and Janet the person pervades the piece.
Léon Goossens (available on Oboe Classics CC2005) is a source for two pieces here: Antares, written for Nicholas Daniel to play for his 90th birthday. And Aulodie, which was written ten years earlier for Goossens himself to perform. In this latter piece, the composer pays tribute to a player in an extraordinary way. Not only is the musical vocabulary one with which Goossens would have been familiar, but Roxburgh even includes the kinds of phrases and moods at which Goossens excelled.
External events are another impulse for Roxburgh. As he says, "sometimes I'm touched by an event. Composers can't affect politicians, but we can make a point for history. It can be a simple expression, as long as it's profound." Listening to the two tracks which comment on war, Cantilena and Silent Strings, we can hear much more than simple anger; perhaps this is because in each of these pieces Edwin Roxburgh has combined his aversion for an act with his respect for particular individuals - the composer Adrian Cruft; and the performers Paul Goodey and Sally Mays.
| ROXBURGH, Edwin (b.1937) | | | 1. | Antares (1988): Paul Goodey (oboe), Sally Mays (piano) | 8:25 | | | 2. | Cantilena (1991): Paul Goodey (oboe), Sally Mays (piano) | 6:48 | | | 3. | Images (1967): Paul Goodey (oboe), Sally Mays (piano) | 6:39 | | | 4. | Elegy (1982): Paul Goodey (oboe), RNCM ensemble conducted by the composer | 12:17 | | | Aulodie (1977): Paul Goodey (oboe), Sally Mays (piano) | | | 5. | Paean | 4:09 | | | 6. | Hermes | 4:24 | | | 7. | Ariadne's Thread | 3:44 | | | 8. | Shadow Play (1984): Paul Goodey (oboe), Xiaodi Liu (oboe), Philip Haworth (cor anglais) | 9:23 | | | 9. | Silent Strings (2005): Paul Goodey (oboe), Sally Mays (piano) | 3:39 | | "... here, as throughout, Roxburgh's chosen interpreter and friend Paul Goodey rises to every technical and rhythmic challenge.... The brief Silent Strings... does not eschew lyricism, though a lyricism not in the sense of sugary cantilena but in a much wider sense of 'song' as something related to, even emerging out of, all aspects of life itself. Anyone who can grasp the difference will be both challenged and rewarded by this music."
Piers Burton-Page, International Record Review
"It is self-evident that the skill of oboist Paul Goodey and of pianist Sally Mays and the other performers is phenomenal. And the programme notes are fulsome."
John France, MusicWeb International
"The high point of the Oboe Classics set is Shadow Play (1984) for two oboes and cor anglais, in which Roxburgh builds a counterpoint from overlaid multiphonics, and the choir of three oboists pursue a beautifully heard performance."
Philip Clark, Gramophone
18.00 eur Temporarily out of stock
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