Anna Clyne: Mythologies

Description

Anna Clyne: Mythologies showcases the composer's enormous palette of colours and effects in five of her orchestral works, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and four internationally-acclaimed composers – Marin Alsop, Andrew Litton, Sakari Oramo and André de Ridder.

Anna Clynne's enormous palette of colours and special effects coalesce into an aural three-dimensional experience of striking originality. Equally there's a comforting familiarity to her music, as she draws inspiration from historic styles that she transforms into a new musical dialect. Anna's background in electro-acoustic music and her fascination for a variety of multi-media – including poetry, visual art and videography – combine to create rich and exhilarating textures of popular appeal.

The five works on Anna Clyne: Mythologies were written over a 10-year period between 2005 and 2015. The performances on the album feature the BBC Symphony Orchestra and four internationally-acclaimed conductors. Masquerade, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to open the Last Night of the Proms 2013 and conducted by Marin Alsop, captures the spirit of that quintessentially English tradition. The title evokes an 18th-century outdoor festivity featuring fireworks, acrobats and street entertainers. This Midnight Hour, conducted by the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo, encapsulates the modernity and decadence of two European poets, Nobel Prize-winning Spaniard Juan Ramón Jiménez and Frenchman Charles Baudelaire. Oramo also conducts The Seamstress, a single-movement violin concerto in all but name, featuring soloist Jennifer Koh as well as the whispered voice of Irene Buckley reciting the work's inspiration, a poem by William Butler Yeats. More poetry by a Nobel laureate, the Irishman Seamus Heaney, inspired Night Ferry; conducted by Andrew Litton, the work conjures crashing waves and weathered seafaring. The album concludes with <Anna Clyne: Mythologies is available digitally as downloads and streams, CD digipak and a limited edition deluxe 2-LP vinyl release (available November 2020).

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

Gramophone Editor's Choice, December 2020 "Anna Clyne's imaginative orchestral language, rich in melodic flights and enticing details, shines through in these five works spanning 15 years of creativity...Irrespective of the conductors, it is the BBC Symphony Orchestra who shine throughout, with superbly mastered sound (by Jody Elff). Another winner from Avie." -Guy Rickards

"showstopping" - BBC Music Magazine

"I have been listening to Anna Clyne's music quite a lot recently as the recently released album Mythologies is an excellent survey of her orchestral music, and its embrace of both filmic pizzazz and contemporary edge." - The Arts Desk

"I'm struggling to remember the last time a piece of contemporary music made me cry … in the final movement of Anna Clyne's DANCE, a cello concerto in all but name, a bear-hug of a theme emerges through angry, percussive col legno snaps that is so beautiful, so heartfelt that it instantly drew tears on first hearing. Repeated listening had a similar effect." – Gramophone Editor's Choice (on Anna Clyne's DANCE for cello and orchestra, AV2419)

"British composer Anna Clyne has written perhaps her most ambitious and appealing work so far. It's hard to resist the gorgeous opening of DANCE, her new cello concerto … Clyne's orchestrations are keenly attentive to color and light, and she's fearless in filling the concerto with melodies of undisguised beauty. Some are folkish, others are regal. All linger in the ear, begging to be heard again. – National Public Radio, 25 Favorite Songs of 2020 (on Anna Clyne's DANCE for cello and orchestra, AV2419)

"colourful, full of energy and overflowing with ideas which grip you from first to last ... I hope that many will derive as much musical pleasure from this very fine release as I have" - MusicWeb International

"All enthralling ... the BBC recordings full of punch. I love this disc. You will too. Treat yourself and buy it on vinyl: spread over a pair of LPs, the sound has incredible bloom and punch." - The Arts Desk