Ewers: Kite

Ewers’ work explores a sophisticated range of colourful and expressive musical gestures. The melodies and harmonies are exotic in their chromaticism and use of non-standard timbres and the textures are intricate and endlessly fascinating. Several of the early pieces, performed by Gemini, were originally written for the group Quorum, a quartet of reeds, violin, ‘cello and keyboard or tuned percussion, all the players being members of the Varèse Ensemble, a chamber orchestra Ewers ran in the 1980s. The brass quintet …blue, indigo, violet was originally written for the Cambrian Brass Quintet, but is performed here, with great zest, by the Wallace Collection. Other pieces have been re-worked or specially written for Gemini to create an album of beautifully crafted and intensely coloured musical images.

This CD combines the music of Francis Poulenc and Tim Ewers. Both composers share an interest in melodic line with Ewers continuing the Poulenc tradition in a more contemporary idiom. In the title track, Following On, Ewers takes a fragment of the Poulenc oboe sonata as his starting point, but develops it in a very different, but equally melodious manner. The playing, as always with the Fibs, is superb, the sumptuous tone colour of the winds supported by Kathron Sturrock’s detailed and supremely musical pianism. All the Ewers pieces appear on CD for the first time.