Jonathan Harvey - Timepieces

ID: NMCD141 (EAN: 5023363014120)  | 1 CD | DDD
Released in: 2008

LABEL:

NMC

Collection:

Vocal Collection

Subcollection:

Voices and Orchestra

Composers:

HARVEY, Jonathan

Interprets:

KOMSI, Anu (soprano)

Ensembles:

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Conductors:

SOLYOM, Stefan | VOLKOV, Ilan

Other info:

The works on this disc explore Harvey’s fascination with Eastern philosophies from the ecstatic Indian text of White as Jasmine to Body Mandala.

“These are some of Harvey’s most ambitious and imposing orchestral pieces, two of them, Body Mandala and ...Towards a Pure Land, written for Volkov and the BBCSSO, whose composer-in-association he was from 2005 to 2007. They are parts of a Buddhist trilogy whose centrepiece is forthcoming, and are well contrasted, the first predominantly fast and loud and full of rough-edged exotic sonority that mimics music in Tibetan monasteries, the second more typically Harveyesque in its meditativeness. The mysteriously static Tranquil Abiding is an extreme case of the latter approach. The three-movement Timepieces explores the nature of time, and clocks, with a complexity calling for a second conductor (Stefan Solyom).”
The Sundy Times, 20th April 2008


“Jonathan Harvey's music juxtaposes moments of disarming simplicity, of naivety almost, with others of considerable sophistication and intricacy. …all but one of these pieces explore different facets of spirituality… Perhaps the most immediately involving is White as Jasmine, based on texts by a 12th-century Hindu saint. Here, soprano Anu Komsi delivers a superbly controlled performance of great vocal beauty.”
Gramophone, September 2008