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These Visions

 
Lunar Saxophone Quartet

MusicalPointers.co.uk, November 2010

The Welsh composers for this saxophone quartet, recorded in Ty Cerdd June/July, range in age from early twenties to '50s, and all are interesting in different ways. LSQ stress that they like to work with composers from early rehearsals "when the music gets done". Commissioning new scores is the life- blood of their repertoire; there is "no fallback position into repertoire of the past". The disc is very up-to-date; one of the pieces had its premiere only this month...

I tend to be cautious with 'classical' saxophones; they can be strident and assertive, especially in small-venue recitals, but here the sound is home-friendly, mainly discreet and mellow.

Signum's production is strikingly good; properly informative and interesting notes, with graphic design and photography unified.

Peter Grahame Woolf

The Independent, 10th December 2010
***

The Lunar Saxophone Quartet is reliant largely on specific commissions which gives their repertoire a modern flavour, with pieces written for them by composers such as John Metcalf and Hilary Tann. Both have work included here, alongside younger Welsh composers such as Christopher Painter, whose five- part Lunar Seas suite bestows descriptive realisations of moon features – eg. The misty “Sea Of Vapours” and the animated “Ocean Of Storms”. Metcalf’s On Song features gently interleaving lines of soprano, alto and tenor saxes over resonant baritone, while Tann’s Some Of The Silence is inspired by a haiku, “a deep gorge … / some of the silence / is me”, and presents a world of calm and solitude.

Gramophone, June 2011

The Lunar Saxophone Quartet's decision to release a disc of newly commissioned works by Welsh composers is a bold one but this is ultimately a recording of rather mixed quality. "These Visions" certainly sets out in promising fashion, with John Metcalf’s On Song again showing how naturally his musical language can adapt to different instrumental contexts. Metcalf’s music sounds equally at home for saxophone quartet as it does for string quartet or harp. On Song, which draws its material from the large-scale Mapping Wales, is typical Metcalf – moments of modal reflection give way to bursts of quite startling beauty. This is lyrical ensemble playing at its very best.

The rest of the disc fails to deliver, however. Composer Peter Reynolds states in his notes to The Head of Brass that its aim is "to entertain and should not be taken too seriously". Enough said. By contrast, enough creative intensity belongs to Chris Petrie's music to suggest future potential but the curiously tided Caneuon Cymru (literally "Songs of Wales") is probably a step too early along the way. Ditto Mark David Boden's these visions did appear.... Plenty of verve and energy propels Ashley John Long's rather diffuse Hevelspending, while the far more experienced Hilary Tann's confidently expressed Some of the Silences echoes the epigrammatic style of the haiku form from which it is derived. This work is somewhat typical of the recording as a whole in that it somewhat lacks the kind of creative spark that informed much of the Lunar Saxophone Quartet's previous releases, such as their timely contributions to Dave Stapleton's Catching Sunlight (EDN)., is typical Metcalf – moments of modal reflection give way to bursts of quite startling beauty. This is lyrical ensemble playing at its very best.

Pwyll ap Siôn

Clarinet and Saxophone Society Magazine

Let me say categorically that the LSQ, as their printed material calls them, are phenomenally talented saxophonists: Joel Garthwaite (sop.), Hannah Riches (alto), Lewis Evans (tenor) and Lauren Hamer ( bari.). These recordings appear to be their second and third CDs; a previous 2008 effort Catching Sunlight was published on another label. Apart from the exquisite performance standards, the internal balance is perfect, the recording quality superb and the intonation so precise as to permit 'beat frequency' experimentation in two of the tracks. As quartet performances go the ones captured here would be very difficult indeed to beat.

These Visions contains: On Song (John Metcalf), The Head of Brass (Peter Reynolds), Caneuon Cymru (Chris Petrie), Some of the Silence (Hilary Tann), a five movement Lunar Seas (Christopher Painter), These Visions Did Appear... (Mark David Boden) and a three movement Hevelspending (Ashley John Long). Running time 72 minutes.

Flux contains, on disc 1: LM-7: Aquarius (Gabriel Jackson), Flux (Ashley John Long), Diaphanousphere (Lucy Pankhurst), Five Short Pieces (Keith Tippett). Running time 44 minutes. Disc 2: VENT (Graham Fiktin), Chair Legs (Eric Schwartz), In Memoriam (James Williamson) and De L'hotel de La Ville a La Concorde (Michael Nyman). Running time 37 minutes.

Before this reviewer sat down to Listen to the discs I read through the packaging material which carried the following, at the time a heartening announcement, on the sleeve of Flux: '(this) is the LSQ's most ambitious project to date. The music on these discs reflects their attempt to build a repertoire that is both coherent in terms of the group and which will be accessible, without compromise.' Unfortunately I found far too much of LSQ's content impossible to access if the term implies understanding and this set me wondering. Have the arts become infested in the way that political correctness has infested modern-day Life? If they have, what is the infestation visited upon the contemporary music scene? Let me make a suggestion. Let's call it ON. This could stand for outrageous novelty (shades of ‘Emperor’s New Clothes') or it could stand for ‘orrible noise'. New music written to attract or meet the needs of arts funding bodies appears to have a number of common factors; Little or no melody, unresolved dissonance, Little structure and often precious little rhythmic direction. Oh, and it's fiendishly difficult to play.

Enough of the negative! LSQ's disc 2 in the Flux set is superb; all four pieces make interesting listening. Fitkin's VENT is his own adaptation of an earlier clarinet quartet work and jolly successful is the transition to saxophones. The Schwartz item is another fascinating and entertaining set to play and to listen to. The four contrasting movements each relate to dance patterns. Whilst In Memoriam starts out with somewhat sad and sorrowful long notes with overtones the item develops harmonically extremely well and displays the awesome stamina of LSQ's embouchures! Finally the Nyman 'portrait' principally in 5/4 provides a spirited exit from what could be a fine second-half concert programme.

Returning to These Visions, all very modern works essentially by Welsh born/trained or currently located composers mostly young, I found significant portions of the material too difficult to describe and must refer the reader to the sample tracks on the publisher's website. The second track includes poetic narrative as well as what sounded like a bird song warbler, most off-putting. Of course the LSQ plays magnificently throughout but I can't imagine an audience made up of anyone other than the composers/players, their relatives and advanced sax students, applauding for anything other than pure survival at the end. Much the same comment applies to the Flux disc l.

What a pity such magnificent playing talent cannot identify and co-operate with modern composers capable of originating new music truly accessible without compromise on the part of the listener.

Kenneth Morris