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Album Summary
Performer
Jeremy Avis (Voice)
Notes & Reviews:
"No one will disagree regarding the excellent performances or the high quality of the musical selections (for me, the beautiful Fantasia by Phillip van Wilder is a particular highlight), or with the agreeable effect of the intimate, natural-sounding recordingWhile there are no major musical discoveries on offer here--works by these composers are often performed and recorded--the point is that we are invited to hear this familiar music in a different historical/contextual relationship while being challenged to rethink our notions of life and custom and societal realities in a place and period we thought we knew well. This is good--and Fretwork is particularly adept at this sort of thing, leaving us to wonder and eagerly await their next project." -Classics Today (10/10)
BBC Music Magazine
Birds on Fire... is by Orlando Gough (b1953), a British composer... The music is hauntingly coloured by reference to klezmer tunes, while the second movement grows over a hypnotic ostinato. A memorable disc.
Gramophone Classical Music Guide
The title of this recording is a quotation from Aaron Appelfeld's 1939 novel Badenheim. The subtitle, 'Jewish Music for Viols', more accurately describes the contents: Fretwork have also recorded consort music by some of the Jewish composers at the Tudor court - the Bassanos and Lupos - along with two contemporaries in Holland, Philip van Wilder and Leonara Duarte, illustrating the extent to which they set aside the declamatory music of their forefathers in favour of the imitative polyphonic style prevailing in Northern Europe. Even the Venetian 'Ebreo' Salamone Rossi borrowed from the Latin motet for his 1622 Songs of Solomon, stilo antico settings with Hebrew texts sung here by Jeremy Avis.
If you're seeking the exotic, listen to tracks 1, 13 and 24. Orlando Gough, best known for his theatre music, composed Birds on Fire in 1997.
This is demanding, wonderfully offbeat music inspired by Ashkenazi Klezmers (more cabaret than camera), which Fretwork brings off with a panache that astonishes and delights. Importantly, it demonstrates the extent to which the viol consort has been circumscribed by its historic - largely amateur - repertoire and suggests that it is capable of far more. Each of the three Gough pieces begins with eerie sounds and is characterised by a kaleidoscope of syncopated ostinati, droll pizzicato asides and sinewy, modal themes conveyed in parallel octaves. You'll swear you can hear an organ, accordion, clarinet and a saxophone, but you don't. Fascinating, liberating music!
Gramophone Magazine
Orlando Gough, best known for his theatre music, composed Birds on Fire in 1997. This is demanding, wonderfully offbeat music inspired by Ashkenazi Klezmers... which Fretwork brings off with a panache that astonishes and delights.
Classics Today
Compelling and convincing, it's to the credit of Fretwork that they chose to bring this previously lost bit of 16th-century music history into the light. Fretwork is particularly adept at this sort of thing, leaving us towonder and eagerly await their next project.
Reviews
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Works Details
Gough, Orlando : Birds on Fire :: [Part 1] - Running Time: 5 min. 52 sec.
Rossi, Salomone : The Songs of Solomon - Performer: Jeremy Avis (Voice)
- Running Time: 3 min. 1 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Anonymous, Lumley Books : Lumley Books :: Desperada (no 86) - Running Time: 1 min. 3 sec.
Anonymous, Lumley Books : Lumley Books :: Pavana (no 95) - Running Time: 1 min. 13 sec.
Anonymous, Lumley Books : Lumley Books :: Gallyard (no 96) - Running Time: 1 min. 6 sec.
Anonymous, Lumley Books : Lumley Books :: Second Desperada (no 80) - Running Time: 1 min. 32 sec.
Duarte, Leonora : Sinfonias in 5 parts :: Pavin (no 97) (attrib. Albert Kellim of Venice) - Running Time: 1 min. 24 sec.
- Period Time: Baroque
Anonymous, Lumley Books : Lumley Books :: Gallyard (no 97) (attrib. Albert Kellim of Venice) Anonymous, Lumley Books : Lumley Books :: Terza Desperada (no 81) - Running Time: 1 min. 19 sec.
Duarte, Leonora : Sinfonias in 5 parts :: no 5 - Running Time: 2 min. 19 sec.
- Period Time: Baroque
Duarte, Leonora : Sinfonias in 5 parts :: no 6, Octave toni (sopra Sol mi fa la sol) - Running Time: 1 min. 53 sec.
- Period Time: Baroque
Lupo, Thomas : Fantasia à 6 no 1 - Running Time: 4 min. 4 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Gough, Orlando : Birds on Fire :: [Part 2] - Running Time: 7 min. 36 sec.
Wilder, Philip van : Fantasia con pause e senza pause - Running Time: 3 min. 40 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Lupo, Thomas : Pavan à 3 no 26 - Running Time: 2 min. 56 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Lupo, Thomas : Fantasia à 4 no 5 - Running Time: 2 min. 1 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Lupo, Thomas : Fantasia à 6 no 9 - Running Time: 3 min. 50 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Bassano, Augustine : Pavan and Galliard for 5 instruments - Running Time: 2 min. 3 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Bassano, Hieronymus : Fantasia no 1 - Running Time: 3 min. 5 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Lupo, Joseph : Pavan à 5 - Running Time: 2 min. 19 sec.
- Period Time: Baroque
Lupo, Thomas : Fantasia à 6 no 4 - Running Time: 3 min. 40 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Lupo, Thomas : Fantasia à 6 no 11 - Running Time: 3 min. 24 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
Gough, Orlando : Birds on Fire :: [Part 3] - Running Time: 10 min. 26 sec.
Rossi, Salomone : The Songs of Solomon - Performer: Jeremy Avis (Voice)
- Running Time: 3 min. 1 sec.
- Period Time: Renaissance
