Adelaide Town Hall

ADELAIDE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BRYARS

This new release is the recording of the first part of the 2015 Adelaide International Festival. Lento, the first track, was commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra to precede a performance of Wagner’s prelude to Parsifal and uses the same instrumentation. It consists of a sequence of major and minor triads and an implacably steady tempo, rather like Satie’s Les Pantins Dansent. Most of Lento is scored for just strings with a central section for winds alone. Those familiar with Howard Skempton’s work as a whole will recognize the same spirit, clarity of purpose and rigour that appears in his earliest works, though here transposed into a much grander environment. This release also features Gavin Bryars “The Porazzi Fragment,” “Ennelina’s Aria from ‘G,’” and “Epilogue from G,” as well as Arvo Part’s “If Bach had Been a Bookkeeper.”

Price: $20.98