“ ... the music is lyrical, melodic, good-natured and benign. That might suggest it's all charm without challenge, but it would be a mistake to assume that. There is some really fine, accessible writing here.”
The Observer

“Benefiting from an agile and assured performance by harpist Eleanor Turner, who shines throughout the recording, Metcalf's lyricism is at its most expressive when such musical journeys are heard to return home”
The Gramophone

The Observer, Sunday 3rd October 2010

Landscape and the spiritual elements of journeying inform much of the music of John Metcalf, particularly the hills and valleys of his native Wales, both literally and when reinterpreted by painters. Paths of Song is a continuous piece for string quartet in five sections, each taken at a walking pace. As with Mapping Wales and Septet, also recorded here, the music is lyrical, melodic, good-natured and benign. That might suggest it's all charm without challenge, but it would be a mistake to assume that. There is some really fine, accessible writing here.
Stephen Pritchard



The Gramophone, Christmas 2010 issue

There's an innate lyrical quality to the music of Welsh composer John Metcalf, often harnessed to particularly effective ends in works of a reflective, sometimes nostalgic nature. The Septet, scored for harp, flute, clarinet and strings, which opens this disc, lends itself well to such lyricism. Commissioned by Antony Griew - a man who has worked tirelessly to promote young composers in Wales - in memory of his parents, the work exudes a warm, radiant glow from the simple hymn-like statement at the beginning to its quietly affirmative reintroduction at the end.

These song-like characteristics are at their most effective when combined with another recurring Metcalf theme, that of travelling and journeying. The travel trope appears in both figural and literal forms here - from the subject matter of certain compositions to matters of musical style and figuration - often imparting a sense of static movement or stirring stillness to Metcalf's music. While this approach may lead to modal meandering at times, as in the quasi-programmatic Castell Dolbadarn ("Dolbadarn Castle"), or a somewhat unsettling sense of deja vu in the Septet (which appears to be too closely modelled on the title track, Llwybrau Gin), it also gives rise to some truly moving and uplifting moments. In Mapping Wales, which closes the disc, such yearning reflection yields to a powerful chorale-like theme, providing the work with a much stronger sense of goal direction. Benefiting from an agile and assured performance by harpist Eleanor Turner, who shines throughout the recording, Metcalf's lyricism is at its most expressive when such musical journeys are heard to return home.
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