GEOFFREY BURGON: Viola Concerto, “Ghosts of the Dance”; Merciless Beauty; Cello Concerto – Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano/ Philip Dukes, viola/ Josephine Knight, cello/ City of London Sinfonia/ Rumon Gamba, conductor – Chandos

by | May 19, 2010 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

GEOFFREY BURGON: Viola Concerto, “Ghosts of the Dance”; Merciless Beauty; Cello Concerto – Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano/ Philip Dukes, viola/ Josephine Knight, cello/ City of London Sinfonia/ Rumon Gamba, conductor – Chandos 10592, 62:43 [Distrib. by Naxos] *****:

If you don’t know the name of Geoffrey Burgon, chances are you still know at least some of his music: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Chronicles of Narnia; Brideshead Revisited; The Dogs of War; and many other film and TV productions have been graced by his interesting, tuneful, and talent-laden music. He is proficient in jazz, and at the age of 30 sold his trumpet in order to force himself to make a living by writing music. While that is not a path that I would recommend to every aspiring composer, for him it did the trick, and his life is replete with popular entertainment scores as well as a host of serious music as well.

I reviewed a Hyperion choral disc of his not too long ago and was moderately impressed with it, though not everything seemed in place. This disc is different, and shows me that perhaps his true métier is instrumental music, and even song, which I will start with. Merciless Beauty is a seven-song cycle that uses texts of the classic English tradition (three of them actually, like “Western wind”) and four by contemporary poet Kit Wright. These are not unlike the populist approach taken by Andre Previn on his marvelous DGG recording Honey and Rue sung by the still-great and apparently still-difficult Kathleen Battle (now that is a desert island disc if ever there was one), though the style is different. Honey and Rue, Neruda Songs (Peter Lieberson), and now Merciless Beauty stand out to me as three of the best new orchestral song cycles I have heard, and you need all three. Sarah Connolly, as the topping on the cake, sings brilliantly.

The Viola Concerto takes advantage of that instrument’s natural reticence and shyness to give us what feels like a running commentary on the other parts of the score, freely interacting with the main line when needed and offering aural verbiage as if a color analyst was interjecting comments at a sporting event. The work is quietly upbeat with slight hints of jazz flavor, perhaps in a Gershwinesque manner, certainly not overbearing. The Cello Concerto is based on the idea of a film noir opening (and being a fan of the genre, grabs me right away), and is dark and mysterious, owing to the sparse scoring used in low registers. The composer writes “I began to view the soloist as a protagonist in such a film, being hunted and pursued through dark streets on a rainy winter night.” Seldom are such overtly descriptive terms felt so directly in music as communicative as this—you can almost see the guy in the trench coat lighting a cigarette on a street corner.

Philip Dukes and Josephine Knight are respectively resplendent in their solo efforts, while Gamba’s Sinfonia plays to utter delight. Sound couldn’t be bettered, unless offered in SACD form. Don’t miss this one.

— Steven Ritter

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