‘Colour is the keyboard’
Lyell Cresswell's music for piano and voice makes for another Kiwi gem.
No one was surprised when Rattle won the Tui for Best Classical Artist in the 2017 Music Awards late last year – the label had released all three category nominees.
The NZ Trio’s vibrant SWAY took the prize, but all finalists had benefited from Rattle’s high production values, stylish design and unswerving commitment to New Zealand’s top artists.
Rattle recently launched another gem, The Art of Black and White, music for piano and voice by Lyell Cresswell. Honoured last year with a Laureate by the Arts Foundation, Edinburgh-based Cresswell is one of our finest senior composers.
For the six solo piano pieces of The Art of Black and White Cresswell quotes Kandinsky’s words – “colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano” – and explores music’s links to painting in pieces called Chiaroscuro, White Relief and Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue. His own palette is multicoloured and the whole set explores contrasting piano sonorities and complex harmonic possibilities. Versatile pianist Stephen De Pledge is in full command of the dramatic range.
Poetic inspiration follows, with fine singing from tenor Christopher Bowen and soprano Jennifer Maybee in settings of words by Emily Dickinson, Marco Bucchieri and Denis Glover. Snatches, from Baptised Generations is spare atmospheric settings of Dickinson’s poetry, tiny songs that show poet and composer revelling in intriguing language and cynical dark humour. Novembre, the third of Bucchieri’s Italian poems set by Cresswell as Tre Canti, evokes a beautiful quiet wintry mood.
Glover’s wry homage to his drinking mate becomes Old Mick, a remarkable group of character songs. Cresswell evokes the poet’s strong emotions for a beloved friend, gruff chords painting a trudging gait in a landscape drawn with fleeting piano fragments.
The disc ends with a chuckle, two sets of witty songs and a lugubrious piano solo, Apteryx, cleverly imitating the movements of our nocturnal national symbol.
THE ART OF BLACK AND WHITE, Lyell Cresswell; Stephen De Pledge (piano), Christopher Bowen (tenor), Jennifer Maybee (soprano) (Rattle)
Carolyn Mills, principal harpist for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, has released a disc of solos for her instrument. Préludes and Romances is an unpretentious and lovely recital, enchanting for the clarity, grace and consummate musicianship of her playing.
The flavour is Gallic, including two harp arrangements of Debussy’s piano music. French harpists Marcel Grandjany, Bernard Andrès and Carlos Salzedo bring performers’ sensibilities to their composing and exploit the subtly decorative colours of the instrument. The longest works in the compilation were written for Mills by New Zealand composers. Ken Young’s Autumn Arabesque is gently nostalgic with harmonic surprises. Helen Fisher’s Otari is, however, the most memorable work on the disc and the most contemporary exploration of harp sonorities. The familiar cascades and flourishes are there, but so are birdsong and bush sounds in a magical evocation of New Zealand’s native botanic gardens. PRÉLUDES AND ROMANCES FOR SOLO HARP, Carolyn Mills (Atoll)