Death and the Maiden

Leith: Honey Siren;

Sigur Rós: Fljótavík (arr. Button); Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 ‘Death and the Maiden’ (arr. 12 Ensemble); Tavener: The Lamb

12 Ensemble

Sancho Panza SPANCD 002 67:52 mins

A collective arrangement of Schubert’s string quartet Death and the Maiden forms the heart of this illuminating second album from the unconducted string orchestra, 12 Ensemble. Its 14 players engage with the piece – and the three contemporary works that frame it – on their own terms while paying meticulous attention to the score. In the process they bring vitality and a sense of natural continuity to diverse repertoire old and new.

Formed in 2012 by violinist Eloisa-fleur Thom and cellist Max Ruisi, 12 Ensemble is a flexible pool of 12-23 virtuoso musicians, really more of a chamber group. Their intensely collaborative approach gives the Schubert a freshness and lightness of touch, regardless of the weight of additional players – including a single double bass. Having devised their arrangement after performing Mahler’s wellknown string orchestra version, they render the work’s ambivalence with particular poignancy: lithe rhythms and subtle inflections of melody and dynamic contrast are set within dark-grained, burnished textures that bring the music richly alive on the bigger canvas.

Expanding that combination of intimacy with larger-writ drama, Oliver Leith’s Honey Siren beguiles in its depiction of a paradoxically ‘smiling alarm’. Cast in three movements, trembling motifs and solid-fluid, major-minor soundscapes eventually coalesce into a slow and oddly lovely unison wail. Bookending the album are arrangements of John Tavener’s choral setting The Lamb (his own) and the Sigur Rós song, Fljótavik

(by Guy Button), by turns touching and enigmatic. Steph Power PERFORMANCE ★★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★