Galliard Ensemble CD Reviews

Harrison Birtwistle: Refrains And Choruses
This release offers a welcome collection of Harrison Birtwistle's shorter works for small wind groupings with and without keyboard accompaniment, as well as some brief solo piano pieces. A number of these selections, some quite obscure, are otherwise unavailable on CD. The music here spans a broad time frame of nearly fifty years duration; it's very good, if highly eclectic stuff.

Much of the reason the latter description holds has to do with Birtwistle's stunningly wide ranging influences. One encounters frankly tonal music mirroring Satie (much of the piano selections qualify here, such as the Gymnopedie-like Berceuse de Jeanne [1984], Sad Song [1971], and the early Oockooing Bird [ca. 1950]) and dissonant items displaying Varese-style grit (such as the brief solo piano entry Hector's Dawn [1987] and the wind quintets Refrains and Choruses [1957] and Five Distances [1992]). This last also spatially spreads its ensemble members in the manner of Henry Brant and utilizes some elements of aleatory. Some of the duos for keyboard and wind instrument make even more wholehearted use of postwar indeterminate techniques: the clarinet/piano selection Linoi (1968) for example demonstrates a loose coordination between the two instruments and in the middle of the work asks the pianist to improvise a vigorous strummed accompaniment on the strings. An Uninterrupted Endless Melody (1991), for oboe and piano, is even more conceptual, having the oboe freely intone a deliberately cyclic line without clear beginning or end over a piano backing that can be chosen from three possible versions-and proceeds to repeat the process through a three movement context. Stravinsky's practical neoclassic ethos gets updated in Duets for Storab (1983), scored for two flutes. And music from pre-Baroque eras also leaves its mark prominently. Hoquetus Petrus (1995), for two flutes and piccolo trumpet, shows that Birtwistle knows this stuttering Medieval technique intimately well (though one hears Varese rather than Machaut in the pitches chosen). And the otherwise Stravinskian Chorale from a Toy-Shop (1967) is scored, in best Renaissance manner, for whatever five instruments can play the particular parts that comprise the work. In a class by itself is the pointillistic duet Verses (1965) which overlays a clarinet line with debts to Olivier Messiaen upon a Milton Babbitt oriented piano texture.

What surprises this critic most is the fact that it all sounds like music written by the same composer. Like Ligeti, Birtwistle somehow is able to project a distinctive voice that does not rely on an inimitable harmonic language to impart uniqueness. And Birtwistle's structures here, while never referential to anything from the Baroque through Romantic periods, contain a convincing inner logic of their own.

Performances are first-rate all the way. The British based Galliard Ensemble (a wind quintet consisting of Kathryn Thomas on flute, Owen Dennis on oboe, Katherine Spencer on clarinet, Helen Simons on bassoon, and Richard Bayliss on horn), joined by guests Mark Law (piccolo trumpet), Robert Manasse (flute), and Richard Shaw (piano), play this challenging music splendidly. Sound and editing are excellent. This disc is very highly recommended.
David Cleary, New Music Connoiseur 2004

Light Distance - Portuguese Wind Quintets Deux-Elles
'Reviewing the Galliard Ensemble's debut disc in May 2001, I was struck by the imaginative sonorities of Autumn Wind by Luis Tinoco (b1969). That piece also finds a place on this disc devoted entirely to Portuguese music, together with two more, equally inventive, quintets by the same composer, a Ligeti-like suite called Light Distance and O Curso das aguas, a pair of studies in movement and stasis.

The influential Fernando Lopes Graca (1906-94) is represented by a colourfully varied suite of Seven Remembrances, and his pupil Sergio Azevedo (b1968) by Aspetto, a bold exploration of a motiv from the last Remembrance (though oddly placed nearly half the disc away.) Closer to traditional perceptions of the wind quintet are Scherzino by Joly Braga Santos and five Milhaud-like Miniaturas by Eurico Carrapatoso.

For contrast, there are solos for clarinet, three nicely turned Fragments by Antonio Pinho Vargas, and for flute, the virtuosic The Panic Flute by Alexandre Delgado. Even if there are no word-shaking pieces here, the programme adds up to a valuable snapshot of recent Portuguese music, vividly recorded and, for some lapses of tuning apart, performed with assurance and flair'.
Anthony Burton BBC Music Magazine - April 2004

The Galliard Ensemble, Opus Number Zoo - (Deux-Elles)
Don't be put off by the subtitle - Twentieth Century Wind Quintets. It's honestly nowhere near as daunting as it sounds. Wind quintets aren't everybody's thing, but don't dismiss it before you've heard it - you may be pleasantly surprised.

With their passion for new music, the members of the Galliard Ensemble are definitely doing their bit to open up the music of little-known composers to a wider public. Which tunes can you hum by the Hungarian composer Ferenc Farkas, for example? (He's better known as the teacher of Ligeti and Kurtag.) His neo-classical suite, based on Early Hungarian Dances, summons up a 17th century world of stateliness and gentle formality, with the use of modes and the melodic minor giving a characteristic Hungarian twist. Or what do you know of contemporary Portuguese composer Eurico Carrapatoso? Not so singable, maybe, but his engaging Five Elegies definitely deserve to be heard.

The Galliard Ensemble plays with sparkle, polish and a good deal of panache. The disc kicks off with Ibert's charming suite entitled Trois Pièces Brèves, the first of which is a whirling jig you might well recognise.

The theatricality of Berio's opus number zoo, an early work dating from 1951, is perfectly suited to this extrovert, fun-loving group of musicians. They take it in turns to recite a collection of four rather touching poems by Rhoda Levine to an instrumental accompaniment.

Ligeti's Six Bagatelles are the highlight, a collection of contrasting miniatures which combine rhythmic impetus with dreamy melody, and clearly show the composer's Hungarian roots. The Galliards are proud to have worked on them with the composer himself, and they definitely show the ensemble at their best. For me, Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik is the least successful offering on the disc, despite being the most serious. Perhaps this instrumental combination is naturally more suited to lighter-hearted repertoire.

The recital ends encore-style with Norman Hallam's playful Dance Suite which, despite occasional moments of rhythmic rockiness, is clearly a favourite with the performers, rounding off this charismatic disc perfectly.
Liz Mundler, BBCi 2004

Light – Distance Portuguese Wind Quintets – Deux-Elles Ltd
The "Rolls Royce" of the wind quintets

Technically they are precise and imaginative, therefore showing two of the principal qualities on which good performances are based. After listening to their recordings, there can only remain very few doubts that these will become reference performances.
Teresa Cascudo, O Publico, Portugal Dec 2003

Harrison Birtwistle, Refrains and Choruses - Deux Elles
Performances are first rate all the way. The Galliard Ensemble play this challenging music splendidly. Sound and editing are excellent. This disc is very highly recommended.
David Cleary, Living Music 2003

"EXCEEDINGLY PLEASING, VITAL, VARIED AND KNOWING CHAMBER PLAYING"

'Twentieth Century Wind Quintets'
Berio Opus Number Zoo Carrapatoso Cinco Elegias Farkas Old Hungarian Dances of the 18th Century Hallam Dance Suite Hindemith Kleine Kammermusik, Op 24 No 2 Ibert Pieces breves Ligeti Bagatelles

Galliard Ensemble
Kathryn Thomas fl
Owen Dennis ob
Katherine Spencer cl
Helen Simons bn
Richard Bayliss bn
(Deux-Elles DXL1025 (65 minutes DDD)

Pure pleasure. There are 32 shortish movements here, mostly light but not slight, brief but not insubstantial. It is immediately obvious that the Galliard Ensemble are enjoymg themelves greatly, and by this I don't mean that they play with rumbustious joviality (except where required, of course). It's more a question of knowing that the very tricky staccato ostinato figures in the third of Ligeti's bagatelles make a wonderful contrast to the elegantly lyrical melody if they're played with absolute but unassertive precision, or that a hint of raucousness makes an irresistible difference to the last of Farkas's Old Hungarian Dances. It means that Ibert and Hindemith, though both writing genial music for the same combination of instruments, should sound quite different, and in Hindmith's slow movement it means realising that his tempo direction, 'peaceful and simple', demands that the beautiful long line should unfold smoothly, without fancy phrasing or unnecessary rubato.

This, in short is wind quintet playing of great distinction. With this repertory Galliard might seem to he ploughing an easier furrow than on their first disc for Deux-Elles, of chamber music by Birtwistle (11/01), but in fact it takes just as much skill, though of a different kind, to work out how much archetypal Ligeti there is in the Bagatelles alongside so much obvious Stravinsky and Bartok. And of a third kind to underline the sly humour of Norman Hallam's dance parodies: his 'Quickstep' is obviously danced in evening dress to a wind-up gramophone; his 'Waltz' is of the New Orleans, not the Viennese variety. There is more than parody to Eurico Carrapatosos adroit homages (to Bart6k, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Webern and Tailleferre) and more than humour to Berio's charming sequence of animal stories.

From this admirably recorded disc you also get a very good idea of how enjoyable the Galliard's public concerts must be. Strongly recommended.
Michael Oliver, Gramophone May 2002

A brisk, bracing, bravura Birtwistle recital from a young ensemble of considerable merit
This satisfying compilation spans more than 40 years of Birtwistle, from a piano piece written in his mid-teens (Oockooing Bird) to Five Distances for wind quintet (1992), which foreshadows the capriciousness and dra matic urgency of the opera which followed close on its heels, The Second Mrs Kong.

Anyone who believes that Birtwistle's music has always been the same should play Linoi (1968) immediately after the rather impersonal Refrains and Choruses for wind quintet (1957). Written for clarinet and a very sparingly used piano, Linoi has all Birtwistle's archetypal lyric melancholy, and the attempts to escape from that melancholy, although futile, have great dramatic force. Not all the later works are on this level: for example, An Interrupted Endless Melody (1991) sustains a tone of plaintive lyricism and, despite sharply pointed piano punctuations of the oboe melody, it seems almost aimless as a result, especially when all three versions are played. But it is the most extended work, Five Distances, whose strongly characterised material and resourcefully evolving form reveal Birtwistle at his finest. This performance does it justice.

Five Distances was first recorded by the Ensemble InterContemporain, an account now available on EMI's useful medium-price twodisc album of Birtwistle reissues (8/01). Oockooing Bird, Verses and Linoi have also been obtainable, relatively recently, in excellent performances by Stephen Pruslin and Roger Heaton on Clarinet Classics. But most of the miniatures on this new release are not currently available elsewhere, and the Galliard Ensemble versions, recorded with pinpoint clarity, can be warmly recommended. It's particularly good to find the smaller labels turning their attention to Birtwistle's earlier chamber pieces, which are all-too-rarely heard today. Next to look forward to - a Black Box/Nash Ensemble CD, due for release shortly.
Arnold Whittall, Gramophone - Nov 2001

The primacy of wind instruments in Harrison Birtwistle's output can stand as much for their quality of primitive pastoiui (eg in the opening of The Rite of spring) as for their much-prized neo-classical coolness. In the flute Duets for Storah (Storah was a Neolithic Hebridean ruler) it is the former quality that typically predominates. Beneath the surface of these austere variations in the Scottish "pibroch" tradition, there resides a shape as inevitable and archetypal as that of a prehistoric axe.

It was this instinctive quality, of music moving forward without sense of antecedent and consequent, that marked Refrain and Choruses (1957) for wind quintet as a milestone not only in Birtwistle's career, but also in the story of postwar British music. The other pieces on this disc either continue its implications, or add appendices, such as the youthful Cuckooing Bird c195 1, for piano, which suggests Debussys pentatonic preludes as a distant model. Hector's Dawn and Sad Song likewise show the composer's gift for whimsical thoughts of one idea (literally themes, in an elemental sense). Verses, An Interrupted Endless Melody and Five Distances connect the main thread of Birtwistle's thinking with his music now, excellently played on this invaluable collection.
Nicholas Williams, BBC Music Magazine Oct 2001
Performance ****
Sound ***

Refrains and Choruses
Harrison Birtwistle
...Throughout, the glittering talent that is the Galliard Ensemble joined by pianist Richard Shaw never seem to put a finger or fingering wrong in what amounts to a challenging programme to say the least. Superbly recorded and supported by excellent booklet notes plus an interview with Birtwistle himself, this is a must-have disc for anyone interested in some of the past half-century's most challengingly rewarding writing for winds.
Duncan Hadfield, What's on in London Aug 2001

Birtwistle: Hoquetus Petrus; Refrains and Choruses, etc
(Deux-Elles) *** £12.99
Though there are two substantial scores in this collection - the 1957 Refrains and Choruses for wind quintet, Birtwistle's first published work, and the Five Distances for Five Instruments from 1993 - both are already available on disc, as is the curious Oockooing Bird, a piano piece of uncanny modal wanderings dating from his early teens. The other chamber music, occasional pieces and birthday tributes here fill some of the usually overlooked gaps in the composer's discography. The 1983 Duets for Storab are a set of six short pieces for two flutes, presenting many of Birtwistle's familiar technical devices in skeletal form, while Verses for clarinet and piano (1965) uses the verse-and-refrain structures that were the building blocks of all his early works. An Interrupted Endless Melody for oboe and piano (1991), meanwhile, plays with changing perspectives between foreground melody and background harmony. Most of this is not great Birtwistle, but it is endlessly fascinating.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian July 2001

CD of the week
HARRISON BIRTWISTLE
Refrains and Choruses
One of the Manchester group from the fifties, along with Peter Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle had an inclination toward the theatrical that pre-empted his spell as the National Theatre's director of music in the Seventies and Eighties. The contrast in activity between the sparse, Sati-esque Berceuse de Jeanne for solo piano, and the manic chattering across two flutes and trumpet in Hoquetus Petrus is striking, yet there's a thoroughly original face to each of the pieces here - spanning 40 years - and a natural, even warm disposition to the instrumentation. The young Galliard Ensemble's performances are revelatory. Stunning music and extraordinary playing.
Edward Bhesania, The Observer Aug 2001

BIRTWISTLE
Refrains and Choruses
The Galliard Ensemble, Richard Shaw (piano)
Deux-Elles DXL 1019, £13.99
THIS DISC from an enterprising new label surveys Birtwistle's wind and solo piano music, from Refrains and Choruses for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon (1957) - his opus one - to Five Distances (1992) for the same combination, and reveals how great and how little is the distance he has come. Refrains, with its savoured dissonances, north-country assertiveness, and chunky ritual structure, is already pure Birtwistle though a tyro piece. Five Distances calls on a far more cosmopolitan technique, but makes clear that this is not a composer given to stylistic revolutions. The attractive (flute) Duets for Storab, suave Verses for clarinet and piano, and ingenious An Interrupted Endless Melody for oboe and piano are among the 12 mostly rare items, all of them well performed.
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times Aug 2001

The Galliard Ensemble, a wind quintet formed in 1993 whilst its members were studying at the Royal Academy of Music, makes a very favourable impression on its recording debut. Its programme includes three pieces by Paul Patterson, an Academy professor for many years: the well-known, witty Comedy for Winds, a student quintet of some abrasiveness, but already showing Patterson's characteristic gift for direct communications; and Westerly Winds, a recent lightweight suite based on four West Country folksongs (or to be precise on three folksongs and Vaughan Williams's 'Linden Lea'). These are complemented by Holst's 1903 Wind Quintet, a fluent and tuneful if rather anonymous piece from what his daughter Imogen called his 'long and painful' apprenticeship, and two winning works from the Ensemble's enterprising composers' competitions: James Olsen's Imbroglio, written when he was still at school, a well-constructed, well-written narrative showing great promise; and the arresting Autumn Wind by the Portuguese composer Luis Tinoco. The Ensemble's playing in incisive, confident and well-tuned even in extreme registers; the recording preserves an excellent balance between the instruments, though the bright acoustic militates against subtlety at the quiet end of the spectrum.
Anthony Burton, BBC Music Magazine May 2001

The three quintets by Paul Patterson (b1947) chart a fascinating stylistic course, from the lean astringency of the 1967 Wind Quintet (the product of a precocious 20-year old student at the Royal Academy of Music), via the Arnoldesque, face-pulling antics of the Comedy for five winds from 1972, to the crowd-pleasing Westerly Winds ( a 1998 transcription of his folksong-based Four Rustic Sketches for orchestra). Patterson writes with total confidence for the medium, and the performances are simply breath-taking in their co-ordination and tonal lustre.

Imbroglio (1998) by James Olsen (b1982) is an uncommonly assured and thoroughly engaging essay from a precocious figure hailed by The Times as a 'great British Hope for the future', while Autumn Wind (1997) by the Portuguese composer Luis Tinoco (b1969) displays a similarly deft touch as well as a rather more progressive outlook (I was frequently reminded of Lutoslawski's later music). Both works were respective prize-winners in the 1998 and 1999 Galliard Ensemble Composition Competitions.

The real oddity here, however, is Holst's Wind Quintet in A flat of 1903, the manuscript of which only come to light in 1978. For all the enviable fluency and solid craft on show, there's not the merest hint of the mature composer's highly distinctive voice. Again, the performance is all one could wish for. In sum, an entertaining concert, beautifully engineered.
Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone Aug 2001

Paul PATTERSON Wind Quintet; Comedy; Westerly Winds
Luis TINOCO Autumn Wind
James OLSEN Imbroglio
Gustav HOLST Wind Quintet
Galliard Ensemble
Meridian CDE84429 [69.30]
Crotchet

A stylish production, with cover picture by the Galliard Ensemble's clarinettist, Katherine Spencer. Something to please everyone, and hopefully nothing to scare away more timid listeners. It falls into two groups, and my preference was for the young composers represented. Those include, paradoxically, Paul Patterson, born1947 and now a leading figure in London's musical education. His abrasive, sometimes raucous student Quintet, composed when he was twenty to stretch himself and his players to the limits, is a great success and entirely worth reviving as a centre piece of the recital.

And the Galliard Ensemble has reaped good rewards from its enterprising annual competition for young composers seeking recognition and performances. No special pleading needed for James OLSEN, a precociously gifted schoolboy with a number of prestigious performances under his belt. His Imbroglio ('a difficult situation between people') put me in mind of Nielsen's quirky Quintet, which portrays the personalities of the original players. Luis TINOCO, a Portuguese student of Patterson at RAM in London, is represented with a solid contribution to the growing contemporary repertoire, wind quintet in two contrasted movements, the first introspective and brooding, the other more strident with material in rhythmic unison, vigorous and 'frozen' by turns, and contrasting extreme gestures; never formulaic, it keeps you wondering how it will go. Both these prize-winning compositions should continue to win welcomes on the recital circuit, and they make me look forward to other music by their composers.

Less innovative maybe is Holst's quintet of 1903, rediscovered and premiered only in 1982. Likewise Patterson's Comedy and Westerly Winds, perfectly crafted, clever music in a popular vein. The first has a Blues and a Hornpipe (reverse variations, its drunken protagonist only becoming clear headed and fully revealed at the end - like d'Indy's Istar in hers, and Schmidt's Hussar); the other (1999, for the Galliards) is a group of fantasias assembled from West Country folktunes. These will both join favourite wind ensemble music by Arnold and Francaix to give sure-fire pleasure on the concert circuit. Excellent ensemble playing and vivid recording.
Peter Grahame Woolf, Classical music on the Web UK

"Compiling a disc devoted to music for wind quintet can be no easy matter, but the Galliard Ensemble have done so with aplomb. They're helped by the varied output for the medium written by Paul Patterson, whose three pieces cover his whole career - from the Bartókian rhythms and abrasive harmonies of his 1967 Quintet, through the Malcolm Arnold-like humour and inventiveness of Comedy for Five Winds (1972), to the entertainingly diverse Westerly Winds, written for the Galliards. They meet the varied challenges of the works head on, and demonstrate a commitment to new music in two prize-winners from their Wind Quintet Composition Competition. James Olsen was only 16 when he wrote Imbroglio (1998), though you'd never guess from its engaging personality and formal ingenuity. Luis Tinoco's Autumn Wind (1997) is music of darker emotions and strong atmosphere; clearly a composer to listen out for. Then there's Holst's Wind Quintet - a delightfully witty piece which, like so much of his 'pre-Planets' music, has only recently been revived. Superb sound, a model of clarity in this difficult-to-record medium, enhances a very desirable release."
Richard Whitehouse