COMPOSERS: Connolly
LABELS: Metier
WORKS: Night Thoughts: Sonatina No. 2 (Ennead); Nocturnal; Tesserae F (Domination of Black); Scardanelli Dreams
PERFORMER: Nicolas Hodges (piano), Sue Anderson (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Sparling (bass clarinet), Nancy Ruffer (flute), Corrado Canonici (double bass), Julian Warburton (percussion)
CATALOGUE NO: MSV CD 92046
Though Justin Connolly’s work has received less than generous exposure of late, this anthology of pieces of recent vintage should help redress the balance in advance of his 70th birthday next year. The performers, a corpus of seasoned new-music specialists, respond with dedication to a composer whose thoughts flow from a source where the intensity of art mingles with the mysterious passage of life.
Others, of course, have been there before, not least the German poet Hölderlin, whose verse Connolly sets sparsely yet powerfully in Scardanelli Dreams. An impressive achievement from what clearly promises to be an Indian summer of creative activity, this cantata, notably in the visionary 'Der Frühling', embraces stillness and agitation in the meaningful contradiction of voice and accompaniment. For Nocturnal, a virtuoso fantasy for flautist, piano, double bass and percussion, a quotation from Moby Dick provides the inspiration. As with the Hölderlin, we sense in the chosen text (a passage with strongly theological overtones) the presence of something beyond the expression of music, yet remaining part of its totality.
The Second Sonatina for piano, and bass-clarinet study Domination of Black, offer additional proof of the composer in fine form in his seventh decade. Nicholas Williams