Thomas Wilson: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

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This was a fascinating discovery. Wilson – a 20th-century Scottish composer – has clearly been overlooked. His writing is colourful, dynamic and cinematic, and it is delivered with real panache... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2019, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 8th Feb 2019
Catalogue No: CKD616
Label: Linn
Length: 73 minutes

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February 2019

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Wilson, T: Symphony No. 4, "Passeleth Tapestry"

Work length28:56

Album only

Rory MacDonald, Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Wilson, T: Symphony No. 3

Work length26:57

Album only

Rory MacDonald, Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Wilson, T: Carillon

Work length17:23

Album only

Rory MacDonald, Royal Scottish National Orchestra

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Rory Macdonald conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the premiere recording of three orchestral works by ‘the father of Scottish music’, composer Thomas Wilson (1927-2001).

Wilson was an important figure in Scotland’s musical renaissance, whose exceptional output established him as a composer of particular significance.

Wilson completed five symphonies of which two are recorded here: Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 4 ‘Passeleth Tapestry’, both of which were premiered by the RSNO.

The Third Symphony, a RSNO commission, was described in The Guardian as “one of most impressive works written by a Scottish composer in recent years”.

The Fourth Symphony, written to mark Paisley’s 500th anniversary, features masterly orchestration throughout and Wilson’s treatment of the strings is especially fresh and inventive.

Carillon was commissioned by Glasgow city council in 1990 as part of its European City of Culture celebrations, as the inaugural work to celebrate the opening of the city's new Royal Concert Hall, where the RSNO is now based.

This recording is a fitting tribute to the leading Scottish composer of his generation by an orchestra who inspired and premiered his work.

Reviews

April 2019

This was a fascinating discovery. Wilson – a 20th-century Scottish composer – has clearly been overlooked. His writing is colourful, dynamic and cinematic, and it is delivered with real panache here.

March 2019

A magnificent release from a major Scottish composer....the brilliant and strongly imaginative scoring is what keeps one's attention riveted from first to last.

February 2019

There are shades of Berg in the lyrical string passages, hints of Bartók in the percussion writing, and even occasional whispers of Ives and (in the Fourth Symphony) Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, but this Scottish composer emerges as a distinct and original voice in these three works commissioned for Scottish ceremonial occasions and anniversaries: the orchestration in the Fourth Symphony, a musical autobiography of Paisley, is especially arresting.

17th February 2019

Wilson’s is a big, eclectic style, and the performances are arresting.

16th February 2019

The Fourth, “Passeleth Tapestry,” is masterfully scored, fuelled by blistering energy at one extreme, intense beauty at the other. The Third is elemental, from the opening to the magical restfulness of the final bars. In these, and in his 1990 work Carillon, Wilson’s artistry comes dramatically to life in powerful, often highly sensitised RSNO performances.

27th July 2019

Fascinating, and a startling introduction to a very individual voice. Linn’s engineering is spectacular, Wilson’s apocalyptic climaxes captured with no sense of strain....No. 3’s birth-to-death narrative is more cogent than that in Tippett’s contemporaneous final symphony.

Offer,Thomas Wilson: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

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