Release date: 18 March 2016
Errollyn’s music is both immediately familiar and entirely original. She combines popular styles, aspects of minimalism, baroque counterpoint, modernist rhythms, and lush romantic textures and draws on influences around her. Many of the works on this album have personal associations and are written for long-standing musical collaborators and friends who appear on this recording.
The Cello Concerto combines passion and beauty with a fearless, rigorous technique. It fuses the cello tradition of Bach to Britten with bluesy ostinatos, angular modernist jolts and an immersive string texture. Bach is also the influence in the 4-movement work Photography, with the second movement quoting Sinfonia No.14 (BWV 800).
If Bach provides one of the mainstays of Errollyn’s kaleidoscopic idiom, the other most obvious one is Purcell. The final track In Earth eerily adapts and distorts Dido's famous lament, using popular music delivery with Errollyn on vocals and jazz musician Tim Harries on bass guitar, accompanied by Quartet X.
Watch the Jelly Bean Extravaganza made by Trapeze Film for the launch of PHOTOGRAPHY here.
Matthew Sharp cello
Orchestra X / Nicholas Kok conductor
The Continuum Ensemble, Ensemble X / Philip Headlam conductor
Quartet X
Tim Harries bass guitar
Errollyn Wallen voice
AUDIO
REVIEWS
NPR TOP 10 CLASSICAL ALBUMS 2016
'Gritty, free-wheeling, exuberant ... a freshness I found very persuasive' BBC Radio 3 Record Review
'This album – the first devoted entirely to Wallen's orchestral music – features vibrant performances ... a fine portrait of a wide-ranging artist' The Guardian
'It is a beautiful disc, a collection for which that overused adjective 'haunting' is entirely appropriate' Gramilano.com
'Her music has an attractive plain-speak and a fun, broad palette ... lovingly performed by The Continuum Ensemble' Gramophone
'Cello Concerto rising and hovering like a lark ascending ... snippets of Bachian figuration, Britten-ish pizzicato, Tippett-like bluesyness, all come together in the richly expressive playing of Matthew Sharp' BBC Music Magazine
'So full-blooded, dramatic and supple is soloist Matthew Sharp's playing that it captures the attention right through to the end of the likeable, English pastoral-tinged work' The Strad
'Ms. Wallen's music is filled with things that resonate and give you a certain feeling of recognition that you have been to places like this before' Classical Modern Music Review
'Errollyn Wallen wears many hats and works in a plethora of styles. Photography ... demonstrates that polystylism in exuberant abundance' Sequenza 21
'Refreshing ... her Cello Concerto, in a commanding performance by Matthew Sharp, speaks fluent English pastoralism with a searching individual voice' NPR.org
FUNDERS
RECORDING CREDITS
Hunger was recorded at Potton Hall, Suffolk on 8 October 2001GERRY O'RIORDAN Recording Engineer & Additional Editing
STEWART FRENCH Editor
ANDREW KEENER Recording Producer
Cello Concerto and Photography were recorded at Henry Wood Hall, London on8 July 2015
GERRY O'RIORDAN Recording Engineer
ANDREW KEENER Recording Producer
In Earth was recorded at The Soundhouse Studios, London on 19 October 2015
GERRY O'RIORDAN Recording Engineer
ERROLLYN WALLEN Recording Producer
Catalogue number: NMC D221
Release Date 18 March 2016