Errollyn Wallen, Photography (NMC)Errollyn Wallen was featured on last week's Music Matters. Where have I been all my life not to have heard of her before. I've never agreed with John Peel's adage that he was more interested in the music he hadn't heard than the music he had but you never can tell.
Errollyn and her Orchestra X say they 'don't break down barriers in music...they don't see any', which is fine. This is a new disc of orchestral pieces but she does much more than that. It will, as usual, be necessary to refer to other composers and genres to describe the music because everything still exists in the context of other things but these aren't barriers, they are reference points. There'll be Pete Tong at the Proms before we know it if we're not careful.
The opening Cello Concerto, played by Matthew Sharp is accessible, passionate and for the most part, I think, optimistic. One approaches any piece by a contemporary composer with some trepidation, knowing that a fragmentary style of loud/soft, stop/start is a la mode but this piece is coherent, organic and flows gorgeously. There is a glimpse of the first Bach Cello Suite, you might think, but it's gone before you're sure. I'm even less confident of any other brief quotations I thought I heard. But the one movement concerto explores the whole instrument and shifts through lyricism and tension and is readily added to the cello repertoire and I hope it is heard regularly in concerts.
I've tried a few times with Hunger and not yet found a way to say it is successful. From 1996, and so somewhat earlier than the concerto, Errollyn says it is a 'still but ravaged landscape' in memory of a friend. It is dark but hasn't yet taken me anywhere in particular. Not to worry. In a wide range of music, if you're not going to write the same concerto 500 times, like Vivaldi, not everything is going to convince everyone all the time.
Photography, though, in its four movements, shimmers, possibly like Philip Glass in a less minimal dance mood, and at the moment where the disc could have gone either way it turns out to have been a good decision to give it a chance. The second movement is homage to Johann Sebastian and anybody who makes him her hero and re-invents him so kindly is ever likely to be a big hit with me.
Again, it is hard to say if it's in the music or in my hearing of it but there may or may not be echoes of English pastoral in the orchestrations thus far. Not believing that any literature, music or art comes from anywhere else apart from other literature, music or art, I'm reluctant to say that anything is entirely 'original' but in a culture that knows so much and habitually refers back and across, Errollyn would seem to be the genuine article and as close to being her own thing as it is possible to be while remaining entirely not a dull, precious avant-garde exhibitionist.
But if the disc wasn't good enough already, In Earth begins almost like something from David Bowie's Berlin period until gradually transposing into Purcell's mournful aria from Dido and Aeneas, sung by Errollyn herself emerging into radiant, funereal light. It is a haunting and moving finale that could have been stretched further and over elaborated but leaves it perfectly poised, demanding to be played again to understand it better rather than risking outstaying its welcome. Once you know what is going to happen, it is mesmerising to hear it appear note by note in the score like stars becoming visible as the dusk deepens into night.
I can't remember the last time I played a new disc quite so often and it is likely to be some time before it is filed on the shelf. Another album, Errollyn, ostensibly something different altogether, is already on its way here. If it's anywhere near as good as this, I'll keep on looking for more. It's possible there might not be enough.
How could I have not known for quite so long.
