Star rating: * * * * *
If I challenged you to name ten living composers whose music will be played 50 years from now, Gavin Bryars would be among my certainties. Never heard of him? Born in Yorkshire in 1943 and best known for two stage shows with Robert Wilson, he works at the nexus of polyphony and post-minimalism, seducing the ear with deceptively simple sounds whose complexity is revealed in the aftertaste.
Epilogue from Wonderlawn (2004) opens with the kind of sound you would associate with a palm court hotel or a BBC World War Two romance, only for the interplay of strings and piano (or electric guitar) to take us into a very contemporary landscape of family dialogue and alienation. Bryars dedicated the piece to his two cellist daughters and the tension of their sorority is riveting throughout.
Eight Irish Madrigals (2004) are the very antithesis of Celtic sentimentalism and The Church Closest to the Sea (2007), evoking a 750 year-old chapel on the Firth of Forth, works jazz riffs on the double-bass against a distinctly Caledonian drone, hypnotic and insistent. Whenever I hear Bryars’ music, I want to hear more. Among today’s ten most durable composers, he’s a dead cert. I might even make this a Twitter contest.
It's the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival week, and while we are in the mood, try this disc from Yorkshire-born Gavin Bryars which sums up all that is attractive in modern music. With roots in the great composers of the past, his highly personal style brings a haunting sadness to poems of love and death in the Irish Madrigals. It is coupled with the gorgeous Epilogue from Wonderlawn, and a tender picture of St Monan's Church in The Church Closest to the Sea. The Scottish group, Mr. McFall's Chamber, is a worthy champion.
'The Church Closest to the Sea (2007), evoking a 750 year-old chapel on the Firth of Forth, works jazz riffs on the double-bass against a distinctly Caledonian drone, hypnotic and insistent. Whenever I hear Bryars’ music, I want to hear more.'
Norman Lebrecht
'This disc from Yorkshire-born Gavin Bryars sums up all that is attractive in modern music. With roots in the great composers of the past, his highly personal style brings a haunting sadness to poems of love and death in the Irish Madrigals.'
The Yorkshire Post
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