Mark-Anthony Turnage: Orchestral Works Vol. 2

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In Hidden Love Song the soprano saxophone's lyricism has that slightly acrid urban feel that typifies so much of Turnage's best work… Full marks to Sarah Conolly and Gerald Finley for the conviction... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2008, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 28th Jan 2008
Catalogue No: LPO0031
Label: LPO
Series: Turnage Orchestral Works
Length: 66 minutes

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Turnage: Twice Through the Heart, Dramatic scena for mezzo soprano and 16 players

Work length29:42

$9.00

$11.70

Marin Alsop, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sarah Connolly

I. No Way Out

Track length3:11

$1.00

$1.30

II. Inside (part 1)

Track length3:18

$1.00

$1.30

III. Love

Track length3:51

$1.00

$1.30

IV. By the Sea

Track length2:20

$1.00

$1.30

V. Inside (part 2)

Track length2:58

$1.00

$1.30

VI. Four Walls

Track length2:14

$1.00

$1.30

VII. Interlude

Track length0:57

$1.00

$1.30

VIII. Landslide

Track length6:02

$1.00

$1.30

IX. China Cup

Track length4:51

$1.00

$1.30

Turnage: Hidden Love Song, for saxophone and orchestra

Work length10:24

$1.40

$1.95

Marin Alsop, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Martin Robertson

Turnage: The Torn Fields, for baritone and large ensemble

Work length25:59

$7.20

$9.75

Marin Alsop, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Gerald Finley

I. Prologue

Track length1:46

$1.00

$1.30

II. A son (Loss)

Track length2:47

$1.00

$1.30

III. The Immortals (No More Jokes)

Track length2:32

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Disabled (Wounded)

Track length9:48

$1.20

$1.95

V. Interlude

Track length2:18

$1.00

$1.30

VI. When you see millions of the mouthless dead (The Mouthless Dead)

Track length3:38

$1.00

$1.30

VII. Everyone Sang (Aftermath)

Track length3:10

$1.00

$1.30

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This latest release documents premiere recordings of works by Mark-Anthony Turnage, the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer in Residence.

Ten years after its first performance at the Aldeburgh Festival, Marin Alsop conducts a studio performance of Turnage’s remarkable work for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble, Twice Through the Heart. The piece is a collaboration with poet Jackie Kay and explores the real-life story of an abused woman imprisoned for the murder of her husband. The music is lyrical but abrupt, painful but often quiet and reflective; one of the composer’s most finely crafted, intensely moving and technically accomplished works. ‘It’s almost made for Sarah’s [Connolly] voice’, says Turnage, ‘she gets very close to the heart of it’.

The Torn Fields was also recorded in the studio, and is sung by baritone Gerald Finley, for whom Turnage wrote the work in 2000-02. This often nightmarish, vivid glimpse of the destruction of war using poetry from 1914-1918 is another example of the composer’s extraordinary ability to create vocal lines that embody their texts. Turnage has himself commented on the huge challenges he experiences when writing vocal music, but concedes that ‘writing for Gerald Finley makes it easier…he is, in my view, one of the greatest baritones around’.

Sandwiched between these works is a recording made live at the world première of Turnage’s Hidden Love Song in January 2006. The soloist, Martin Robertson, is another close friend and regular collaborator with Turnage, and this performance reveals the sensitive, delicate nature of Turnage’s musical gift to his wife Gabriella Swallow.

Reviews

April 2008

In Hidden Love Song the soprano saxophone's lyricism has that slightly acrid urban feel that typifies so much of Turnage's best work… Full marks to Sarah Conolly and Gerald Finley for the conviction they bring to the two song cycles…

2010

This is the second CD to result from Mark- Anthony Turnage's LPO's residency. The surprise is that two of the three pieces are heard in top-notch studio recordings. Twice Through theHeart is a revival of a dramatic song-cycle-cumscena from as long ago as 1997. The text is drawn from a series of poems originally written for a television film about a woman who stabs her abusive husband. As might be expected it's a pretty bleak affair. Sarah Connolly is a distinguished protagonist, and if listeners feel uncomfortable with the mix of artful delivery and documentary realism, that may be part of the intended effect.
Hidden Love Song, featuring saxophonist Martin Robertson, derives from a live concert with applause retained. This first new composition associated with Turnage's LPO tenure is a wordless offering built from musical ciphers associated with the composer's partner. The characteristic attempts to disrupt the lyrical line are thus carefully rationed and there's no mistaking the professional gleam and twinkle of the results.
Confirming a certain softening of idiom, TheTorn Fields is equally accessible though weightier thematically. Here Turnage eschews Jackie Kay's down-to-earth phraseology in Twice Through theHeart, preferring the sort of poetry that attracted composers of a previous anti-war generation.
The music still draws on vernacular bluesy elements but they lie within a smoother, more melodic, high-culture mix. It's difficult to imagine a more ardent exponent than Gerald Finley.
While the orchestral writing is spare, Finley's diction is second to none, allied to exceptional beauty of tone. Particularly haunting is the Wilfred Owen setting, the narrative of a soldier who, like the protagonist of The Silver Tassie, survives severely maimed only to experience physical and emotional rejection. The gentle treatment of the familiar final poem by Siegfried Sassoon provides a glimpse of the transcendent. Excellent contextual notes plus full texts (including passages not set by the composer).

April 2008

Finley magnificent in the Turnage anti-war settings that crown a fine disc.

Played with arching smoothness by Martin Robertson…Ultimately the piece is a love song, and a beautiful one.

Mark-Anthony Turnage: Orchestral Works Vol. 2

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