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SIG 260

Talbot: Tide Harmonic

The Classical Shop
release date: July 2011

Artists:

Jeremy Holland-Smith Orchestra

Jeremy Holland-Smith

Venue:

Air Lyndhurst Studios, London

Producer:

Joby Talbot

Engineer:

Mark Wyllie

Tom Bailey

(Assistant)

Record Label
Signum

Genre:

Chamber

Total Time - 72:20

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Select Complete Single Disc for

JOBY TALBOT

Tide Harmonic

72:20

Dew Point

18:31

Hadal Zone

15:37

Storm Surge

9:05

Algal Bloom

15:13

Confluence

13:54

Jeremy Holland-Smith

July-August 2009

Tide harmonic is a new work for small ensemble by the contemporary British composer Joby Talbot. With a compositional aesthetic that threads through his classical and concert works, this disc was born our of a collaboration with choreographer Carolyn Carlson originally entitled Eau. A piece for small ensemble of string quartet, percussion, harp and keyboards (celesta, paino and harmonium). Tide Harmonic is descirbed by its composor as: "... a kind of water symphony that, rather than constructing a poetic or narrative programme inspired by man’s relationship with water, instead focuses on the substance itself, the forces that act upon it, and the energy that flows through and from it".

This is Signum’s second album of Talbot’s work, and comes 5 years after Path of Miracles (SIG 078) with the professional chamber choir Tenebrae.

"Joby Talbot’s music is increasingly popular and its surface attractions help to explain why. His 2008 ‘water symphony’, the 72 minute Tide Harmonic began existence as a dance score called Eau for a French production choreographed by the American, Carolyn Carlson. It was first performed in Lille in April 2008. This in turn generated the desire to record the work, which was duly carried out the following year.

It is, as with all Talbot’s music, wholly approachable. It opens with a flurry of droplet percussion, conjuring up precise but rather hypnotic warmth and moves from there with increasing density (but clarity) of sound, thrumming toward open lyricism. The instrumentation of five violins, viola, two cellos, bass, two harps, and then piano, celesta and harmonium ensures that textures are clear and aerated. The effusiveness of the two harps, rippling away, gives its own sound-world to the five movement symphony. Hadal Zone is the name of the second movement, a frozen but never static place, indeed lissom in its central section where one hears some rolled chords and romantic expression, tangy tremolandi and a well managed steady crescendo. The central movement sounds to me to be the Scherzo. Called Storm Surge it is, at nine minutes, the most compact of the five and also the most propulsive, with plenty of kinetic wave energy — a storm at sea with funky patterns. Algal Bloom returns us to thin strands of sound; it’s a kind of Adagio, with plenty of minimalist sounding repeated pattern riffs, before music accretes to music and it develops greater athleticism and sweep. The finale is Confluence, a cleansing, rather lovely affair — filmic, visual, the harp figures promising the hope of renewal.

Talbot’s reputation as an accessible and enjoyable composer will certainly take no hits from this latest recording. It’s the antithesis of Boulez."

Jonathan Woolf - musicweb-international.com - 12 March 2012

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