Off The Beaten Track

[LeMartinPecheur]

Piers Hellawell

My chamber music club had a concert last week by the Schubert Ensemble of London. A very mixed programme: Schumann piano 5tet and the rather less well-known one by Max Bruch (mildly pleasant but hardly a great discovery IMO). The OTBT surprise was the work in the middle, one of their own commissions from 1999, a 2-mov't piano quartet by Piers Hellawell, The Building of Curves, which they introduced as one of their favourites of their many commissions.

Hadn't expected much from it from my slight acquaintance with PH's work but it was really impressive. They'd brought the huge total of TWO copies of their own CD recording on this disc

- I got one of them: they could have sold many more, even to our rather ancient (but knowledgeable) audience!

That brings my total of PH CDs to 3, the previous two being 50p throwaways at our local discount store Would be interested to hear from any PH enthusiasts.

[Beef Oven!]

[teamsaint]

Good?

[Beef Oven!]

Good?

Yes, very good. Bought it 18 months/2 years ago on a whim. This Amazon review sums it up perfectly.

[Richard Barrett]

A quite underrated composer IMO. He's written a lot more vocal music (and operas of course) than instrumental, but I often listen to his 1972 Concerto for piano and 19 players:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwDd63u4yes

And if you like the song cycles on the Naxos CD you should also try his large-scale Requiem (setting not only the usual Latin text but also verses from the book of Job):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfvLNevo_ZE

[Richard Barrett]

50p throwaways at our local discount store

Every composer's ambition.

[Beef Oven!]

Thanks for those links RB. I’ve just listened to the piano concerto and thought it was very good indeed, I shall go back to it soon. I’m now listening to 'Ausschnitt aus Lear-Fragmente’, which followed on from the pc on the YouTube channel. Clearly a top-notch composer. At some point I will check out the requiem.

[teamsaint]

Robert Erickson.
Night Music. from 1978.

I missed the replies about that Reimann Naxos CD, so thanks for those Beefy and RB.

A chance to hear the Reimann Requiem live would be one not to miss.

[Beef Oven!]

[Lat-Literal]

Brian Eno - The Ship - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn1riJSHhkY

[Beef Oven!]

Brian Eno - The Ship - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn1riJSHhkY

Great! Thanks, Lat-Literal. This one seems to have passed me by. Will definitely investigate further. I’m always interested in new works from Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.

[Serial_Apologist]

Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.

No wonder all his hair fell out!

[Beef Oven!]

No wonder all his hair fell out!

With all those wonderful names, why did his parents lead it off with Brian!!??

My geography teacher’s name was Brian, IIRC.

[Serial_Apologist]

With all those wonderful names, why did his parents lead it off with Brian!!??

My geography teacher’s name was Brian, IIRC.

For the Life of me I can't think why...

[Beef Oven!]

For the Life of me I can't think why...

His dad was also a geography teacher and was also called Brian. I suspect they were keeping a family tradition going. Got me through my O’level, so I shouldn’t complain.