Gavin Bryars

Review: For the first piece that I wrote for the Estonian National Men's Choir (RAM) in 2006 I set Silva Caledonia, one of 40 Sonnets from Scotland by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan, and in 2008 I added two more. Edwin Morgan was a very fine poet indeed, a virtuoso in all the forms he used, and was the Scottish Poet Laureate (he died in 2010). All these sonnets follow faithfully the sonnet's defining 14 line format and are based in structure on the sonnets of Petrarch. I have set a number of Petrarch sonnets for my second and fourth books of madrigals and, just like Petrarch, Edwin Morgan breaks the 14 lines in two parts - an 'octave' and a 'sestet', contrasting the two parts rhythmically and with a rhyme scheme as 2x4 and 2x3. Memento and The Summons, the other two pieces in this collection, draw on the experience of having worked with the choir. All three pieces are dedicated to RAM and to its conductor, my friend Kaspars Putnins. Gavin Bryars, 2012. Contents: Silva Caledonia - Memento - The Summons.

40393b | Songbook $8.95 | TTBB

Review: These two sonnet settings, in much simpler forms than here, were originally part of my piano concerto. The presence of a male chorus within the concerto represents a kind of homage to Busoni, a composer whom I have always admired and whose piano concerto has a men's chorus in the last movement. I had used a chorus of Russian bass voices in my double bass concerto, so there is precedence within my own work. My choice of the poetry of the great Scottish poet Edwin Morgan alludes to my other work with male choirs, having already set six of his Sonnets from Scotland by this time. The two sonnets are heard in their entirety in the concerto, and one of them - The Solway Canal - gives a subtitle to the concerto, just as Kukol'nik's Farewell to St Petersburg gives a subtitle to the double bass concerto. Gavin Bryars, 2012. Contents: The Solway Canal - A Place of Many Waters.

40394b | Songbook $6.95 | TTBB

Review: Contents: Lauda 31 (Omne homo) - Lauda 32 (Ogn'om canti).

40395b | Songbook $9.95 | TTBB

Review: One of Gavin Bryars' early major choral works, On Photography uses texts by Pope Leo XIII combining a modern subject matter (photography) and archaic language (Latin) with music of timeless beauty. This title is accompanied by a harmonium/piano part (49019236).

40341b | Songbook $15.95 | SATB

Review:

40396b | Songbook $6.95 | SSA

Review: These Madrigals were written especially for the Hilliard Ensemble with who Gavin Bryars has worked for many years. The texts are by the poet and writer Blake Morrison.

Songlist: Web, Stormy, Almond Tree, Just As The Ash-Glow`, Within Minutes, Our Bodies In The Shower, She'd Buy Things, All The Homely Arts And Crafts, In April, Who's The More To Blame, The Print Of Soles, My Pomegranate, Against Dieting

9194b | Songbook $19.95 | TTBB Madrigal Arrangements

Review: Glorious Hill was commissioned by the Hilliard Ensemble and first performed by them at its summer Festival of Voices in England. The title, Glorious Hill comes from the name of the small-town Mississippi setting of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke.

7554b | Songbook $5.50 | SATB

Review: Following his highly successful recordings with the Latvian Radio Choir, Gavin Bryars moves on to a recording with the Estonian National Male Choir, the largest professional men's choir in the world. "... The music of Gavin Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, full of sensuality and wit and is deeply moving. He is one of the few composers who can put slapstick and primal emotion alongside each other. He allows you to witness new wonders in the sounds around you by approaching them from a completely new angle. With a third ear maybe. . ." Michael Ondaatje

Songlist: Double Bass Concerto- Farewell to St. Petersburg, Memento, Silva Caledonia, O Oriens, The Summons , Ian in the Broch

2332c | 1 CD $16.95 Men's Choirs CDs

Review: In recent years Gavin Bryars has concentrated to a great extent on writing for the human voice - and a great deal of this is choral music. He has a close relationship with ensembles from the Baltic, especially the Latvian Radio Choir, now without doubt one of the world's greatest choirs. His first collaboration with them on GB Records was the superb On 'Photography', which was an Editor's Choice in Gramophone and extensively played on BBC Radio 3. This very fine choir is at home in all forms of contemporary music, but also in music from the baroque as well as early music. Many of Gavin Bryars' works on this recording take forms from early music, and some pieces originate in collaborations with early music ensembles - such as the Hilliard Ensemble and Trio Mediaeval. Here we have the stunning female voices of the Latvian Radio Choir in 9 and 11 part laude; the whole choir a capella in Glorious Hill and, in Cadman Requiem, accompanied by Riga Cathedral's magnificent organ in the cathedral's stunning acoustic. As on the first recording with the Latvian Radio Choir, Gavin Bryars has included works by Latvian composers close to his heart. Eriks Esenvalds is a young composer whose work recorded here was awarded first place at the 2006 International Rostrum for Composers. Peteris Vasks is perhaps the best known of all living Latvian composers. The work of both composers has a profound concern for the spiritual, which has led it to be linked with the music of composers such as Arvo Part or Giya Kancheli.

Songlist: Lauda 22, Fammi cantar l'amor, Lauda 23, Glorious Hill, Legende de la femme emmuree, Dammi conforto Dio, Lauda 24, Ziles zina, Cadman Requiem, -Kyrie/Requiem, -Creation Hymn Paraphrase (Bede), -Agnus Dei, -Creation Hymn, -In Paradisum

8751c | 1 CD $15.95 Latvian Choral Music