Anna Clyne: Mythologies

Description

This magnificent 2-LP limited edition vinyl release of Anna Clyne: Mythologies befits the composer's enormous palette of colours and effects, showcased in five of her orchestral works performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and four internationally-acclaimed conductors – Marin Alsop, Andrew Litton, Sakari Oramo and André de Ridder.

Anna Clyne: Mythologies became an instant media and popular success when it was released in October 2020 – "hands-down one of the half-dozen best classical albums of 2020", according to New York Music Daily. The album is now presented in a magnificent 2-LP set, the splendour of the glossy gatefold and solid 180gsm vinyl an appropriate match for Anna's enormous palette of colours and special effects.

Anna's compositions balance striking originality with a comforting familiarity as she draws inspiration from historic styles and transforms them into a new musical dialect. Her 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. A kaleidoscopic orchestral showcase, the set opens with Masquerade. Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to open the Last Night of the Proms in 2013 and conducted by Marin Alsop, this curtain-raiser captures the spirit of that quintessentially English tradition, evoking 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 set concludes with <CRITICAL ACCLAIM "five vibrant, exuberantly scored and appealing works … irresistible … another winner" - Gramophone Editor's Choice

"dazzling … bursting with kaleidoscopic textures" - BBC Music Magazine, * * * * *

"All five works here teem with vivid, near-cinematic imagination and atmosphere" - Presto Classical Editor's Choice

"an absorbing compendium of her orchestral music, showcasing her exhilarating mix of multimedia, historical models and new dialects" - BBC Radio 3 Record Review Extra

"a real contemporary master work (Masquerade, by Anna Clyne)" - BBC Radio 3 Breakfast

"bristles with full-on orchestral dynamism" - Guardian

"entertaining, ingenious and unpredictable. That's Anna Clyne." -BBC Radio 3 Record Review

"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