Philip Grange: Homage

Product Information

modernist style that remains beguiling and irresistible (especially whenplayed as superbly as it is by the During the early 1990s Grange completed two BBC commissions, Focus and Fade for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which performed the premiere at the Royal Festival Hall in 1992 conducted by Andrew Davis, and Lowry Dreamscape, which was premiered at the 1993 BBC Festival of Brass by the Sun Life Brass Band conducted by Roy Newsome. Other works from this period include Piano Polyptich (premiered by Stephen Pruslin on 26 June 1993 at the Aldeburgh Festival) [6] and Bacchus Bagatelles for wind quintet. [7] I have not heard North Country composer John Casken’s (b. 1949) Piano Quartet. Philip Grange explains that he garnered material for his Tiers of Time (2007) from the that work’s final bars. The stimulation of Grange’s ‘landscape inspired’ piano quartet was found in ‘the desolate, gloomy moorlands and the breath-taking vistas often illuminated by powerful sunlight’ prevalent in the English Peak District. The title itself is derived from geological strata apparent in those hills. This work is not a ‘cow and gate’ depiction of the countryside: it is hard-edged, more mill-stone grit that anything else. It is not a difficult musical language, but one that is not immediately approachable. I had to listen to it twice before the gentler, more lyrical passages revealed themselves, especially in the deeply moving conclusion. It is an impressive piece of writing for the ensemble. Whilst still in the North Country, I would love to hear Grange’s Lowry Dreamscape for brass band! I have not heard North Country composer John Casken’s (b. 1949) Piano Quartet. Philip Grange explains that he garnered material for his Tiers of Time (2007) from that work’s final bars. The stimulation of Grange’s ‘landscape inspired’ piano quartet was found in ‘the desolate, gloomy moorlands and the breath-taking vistas often illuminated by powerful sunlight’ prevalent in the English Peak District. The title itself is derived from geological strata apparent in those hills. This work is not a ‘cow and gate’ depiction of the countryside: it is hard-edged, more mill-stone grit that anything else. It is not a difficult musical language, but one that is not immediately approachable. I had to listen to it twice before the gentler, more lyrical passages revealed themselves, especially in the deeply moving conclusion. It is an impressive piece of writing for the ensemble. Whilst still in the North Country, I would love to hear Grange’s Lowry Dreamscape for brass band!

The novel’s structural use of disjunction, which results in gaps in the narrative, reflected in the continuity breaks created by the work’s four-movement structure; Grange has written works for the National Youth Wind Ensemble of Great Britain, Ensemble Gemini and the Psappha New Music Ensemble. On 12 July 2009, the National Youth Wind Ensemble performed the world premiere of Cloud Atlas, a large-scale work based on the 2004 novel by David Mitchell, at the Cheltenham Music Festival, conducted by Philip Scott. [8] Ensemble Gemini's CD Homage, including the works Tiers of Time (piano, violin, viola and cello, 2007), Elegy (cello solo, 2009), Piano Trio: Homage to Chagall (1995), and Shifting Thresholds (flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello, 2016), was issued by Metier in 2019. [9] The Psappha Ensemble first performed Cimmerian Nocturne at the 1980 St Magnus Festival in Orkney. [10] Over the past 15 years Grange has also completed Eclipsing(2004), a large-scale orchestral piece. Commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Philharmonic and premiered by them under Vassily Sinaisky; the work was also performed by the orchestra under Andris Nelsons in a BBC concert celebrating the composer’s fiftieth birthday. Also dating from this period are three string quartets; the first two were completed in 2003 for the Kreutzer and Lindsay Quartets while the third, Ghosts of Great Violence(2011/13), was written for the Quatuor Danel.More recently he has composed the large-scale chamber work Shifting Thresholds(2016) for the ensemble Gemini, Carved Forms(2017) for flute and accordion and a Violin Concerto (2019).The latter was commissioned by the BBC for Carolin Widmann and the BBC Philharmonic who premiered the work under Ben Gernon at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester in November 2019. Fiercely difficult to play though the music is – and it is meant to be unconducted, like true chamber music – it

The Robert Farnon Society- Home of Light Music

Philip Grange is an academic as well as a composer. This should not be met with disapprobation. There is nothing pedantic or arcane about any of these pieces. He is currently Professor of Composition at Manchester University, a position he has held since 2001. He has also held posts at Durham University, Trinity College, Cambridge and Exeter University. Grange studied with Peter Maxwell Davies between 1985 and 1981, as well as David Blake at York University between 1976 and 1981. Grange was born in London. He attended Peter Maxwell Davies’s classes at Dartington, and then took further, private, lessons with Davies while at The University of York, where he also studied composition with David Blake. [1] Recorded live at Orkney's St Magnus Festival, Wells' account proves this 1974 theatre piece still has the The Piano Trio (1995) is subtitled Homage to Chagall. The third movement, Quasi recit., is the only one to refer to specific pictures and these can be reached online. It’s not easy to identify aural connections with the painter but Grange talks of his analogy to Chagall’s ‘use of a large, but nonetheless limited number of images, one of which might provide the focus of a particular painting, while appearing peripheral in another. his] language is… extremely expressive and his textures are frequently very open…definitely a piece

This is a thoroughly enjoyable programme. True, the music is not always immediately obvious, but that is no bad thing. Works of art can give up their secrets and their beauties slowly. All the pieces are written in a modernist style that is always approachable, interesting and satisfying. All these works are written with skill, strong formal principles, sharp dissonance balancing lyricism, and a rigorous intellectual underpinning There is nothing here for enthusiasts of neo-minimalist, characterless, post-Einaudi music that seems to dominate so much that passes for ‘art music’ these days. Prior to arriving at Manchester, Prof Grange held the posts of Professor of Compositionc at Exeter University (1989-2000), Fellow in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge (1985-87) and Northern Arts Composer Fellow at Durham University (1988-89). His principal composition teachers were Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (with whom he studied both privately and at the Dartington Summer School between 1975 and 1981) and Professor David Blake (with whom he studied at York University between 1976 and 1983). for string quartet and clarinet takes Italo Calvino’s beguiling Invisible Cities as its starting point, capturing the Grange's first published pieces date from the late 1970s, and include Cimmerian Nocturne (1979), which was commissioned by The Fires of London, and included a performance under director Peter Maxwell Davies at the 1983 Proms [4] as well as performances in Britain and abroad. Other early works include The Kingdom of Bones for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra, (1983), Variations (1988) and Concerto for Orchestra: Labyrinthine Images (1988) [5]Nicola LeFanu/David Lumsdaine: Mandala 3 Metier/Divine Art msv28565 ʽʽIt is powerful music, an intense and absorbing work which receives virtuosic performances from pianist