Landscape's Creatures
A collection of recent Australian choral music, mostly by younger composers. It is good to see that choral writing is alive and well in Australia. Each work makes a strong statement, with a variety of choral techniques and styles.
Nicholas Routley director
Timothy Paillas vibraphone
Sydney Chamber Choir choir
Nicholas Routley composer
Stephen Adams composer
Paul Stanhope composer
Logos is a dramatic work by the 2001 winner of the Paul Lowin Award for a song cycle. The choir's director contributes a short piece with solo vibraphone (Tim Paillas). Memory Pieces is a long work based on stream-of-consciousness prose by Ania Walwicz – a beguiling score.
The disc takes its title from Stanhope's Geography Songs, which he conducts here: settings of poems by Michael Dransfield.
Reviews
The (mainly) non-professional chamber choir field is in impressively good health, with the best virtually indistinguishable from their professional colleagues. The Sydney choir is a good example and its repertoire of contemporary music from Australia worth collectors' attention, offering pleasure and satisfaction entirely comparable with leading instrumental ensembles.
This selection boasts interesting sources. Full texts are provided, which is essential for music of this complexity and enhances listening pleasure at home.
Marcellino's multilingual text explores the Babel of today's worlds (verbal and musical languages). His Logos 'constructs itself until it is too confused'. Routley uses fragments from the Song of Solomon 'as triggers for memory' and has a vibraphone to increase the bloom on women's voices. Stanhope's Geography Songs depict 'a sense of space, whether the gutter or the rainforest' and explore 'spiritual qualities of the natural world'. Stephen Adams takes on Walwicz's free associations and interconnections of memory and his is a major work of compelling interest.
Fine music, given with total confidence and magnificently recorded. Not a new CD but, statistically, monthly releases tend to offer less of lasting value than the best from years past which tend to fail to get reviewed far beyond their countries of origin and are too quickly forgotten. You won't regret sampling the productions of Sydney Chamber Choir.
Artists
Nicholas Routley
Nicholas Routley is a conductor, pianist and composer who founded the Sydney Chamber Choir in 1975 and has shaped its work in Renaissance polyphony and new Australian choral music.
Sydney Chamber Choir
Widely recognised as one of Australia's finest choirs, the Sydney Chamber Choir marked its 25th anniversary in 2000. The Choir continues to inspire and enchant Sydney audiences with its versatility and brilliant performances.
Tracks
- Logos Raffaele Marcellino 9:59
- Sicut lilium Nicholas Routley 6:09
- Prelude 1:22
- I 4:59
- II 9:56
- III
- I 3:50
- II 5:43
- III 3:56
- IV 2:44
- V 4:18
Memory Pieces Stephen Adams
Geography Songs Paul Stanhope
Performers
- Paul Stanhope · conductor · tracks 7–11
- Nicholas Routley · director
- Timothy Paillas · vibraphone · track 2
- Sydney Chamber Choir · choir
Composers
Stephen Adams
Stephen Adams is an Australian composer of contemporary vocal and choral music, known for atmospheric settings that draw on prose and poetry.
Raffaele Marcellino
Raffaele Marcellino writes chamber, choral and instrumental music that favours wit and idiosyncrasy over dogma. His scores can be ballistic and explosive, or spare and enigmatic, always alert to text, colour and the physical life of the instruments.
Paul Stanhope
Paul Stanhope writes chamber and choral music charged by landscape and light: sea, rainforest, dawn and open space. His scores for voice, strings and choir balance precision with verve, and he has shaped that sound from the podium as well as the page.
Contributors
Artwork [Cover Art: "Eye Rub" (1996)]
Richard Larter
Where to listen
Landscape's Creatures is available for streaming through Apple Music. It can also be purchased through the iTunes Music Store.
Landscape's Creatures is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- TP160
- Total playing time
- 52 minutes 56 seconds
- Producer
- Belinda Webster
- Recording Engineer
- Belinda Webster
- Credit
- Richard Larter
- Release date
- 27 Jul 2001
- Label
- Tall Poppies
- Sound recording
copyright - ℗ 2001 Tall Poppies Records
- Category
- Australian Classics
- Genres
- Contemporary Classical, Choral & Sacred
- Barcode
- EAN 9399001001606
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