Knussen Conducts Knussen
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Oliver Knussen
Label: DG
Magazine Review Date: 1/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 51
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 449 572-2GH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Flourish with Fireworks |
Oliver Knussen, Composer
London Sinfonietta Oliver Knussen, Composer Oliver Knussen, Conductor |
| (The) Way to Castle Yonder |
Oliver Knussen, Composer
London Sinfonietta Oliver Knussen, Composer Oliver Knussen, Conductor |
| (2) Organa |
Oliver Knussen, Composer
London Sinfonietta Oliver Knussen, Composer Oliver Knussen, Conductor |
| Concerto for Horn and Orchestra |
Oliver Knussen, Composer
Barry Tuckwell, Horn London Sinfonietta Oliver Knussen, Conductor Oliver Knussen, Composer |
| Music for a Puppet Court |
Oliver Knussen, Composer
London Sinfonietta Oliver Knussen, Composer Oliver Knussen, Conductor |
| Whitman Settings |
Oliver Knussen, Composer
London Sinfonietta Lucy Shelton, Soprano Oliver Knussen, Conductor Oliver Knussen, Composer |
| '... upon one note', fantazia after Purcell |
Oliver Knussen, Composer
London Sinfonietta Oliver Knussen, Composer Oliver Knussen, Conductor |
Author: Michael Oliver
Oliver Knussen is such a very good conductor, often giving revelatory performances of modern scores that we had thought to be difficult until he took them on, that it’s valuable to be reminded that he is after all a composer who conducts, not a conductor who does a bit of composing in his spare time. This is a sample of what he’s written since his two one-act operas Where the Wild Things are (1984) and Higglety Pigglety Pop! (1985), a period during which, he says, he has come to prefer being “bewitched for a few minutes than hypnotized for an hour”.
Bewitching these pieces certainly are, and although all are quite short none is a miniature. The Flourish, written for Michael Tilson Thomas’s first concert as Musical Director of the LSO, has lyrical substance as well as the appropriate ‘occasional’ brilliance. The Way to Castle Yonder is a very brief suite fromHigglety Pigglety Pop!, but also a vivid, almost Ravelian orchestral tone-poem in its own right. Knussen’s operas will tell you that he loves fantasy, and he takes a child’s as well as a craftsman’s pleasure in beautifully wrought machines that work perfectly. The Organa are fine examples of this, brilliantly ingenious miniatures that use a twelfth-century technique to modern ends with such audible logic and lucid instrumentation that you want to hear both again immediately. Something similar happens in Music for a Puppet Court, two solutions to puzzle-canons by the Tudor composer John Lloyd flanking further developments of the same material and in the same spirit; again, not the least pleasure of repeated hearing is the satisfaction of working out how it’s done.
The most substantial works here and what might seem like the slightest are both in a sense dreams.“... upon one note” is a day-dream from which Knussen is awoken by Purcell. The Horn Concerto is a beautiful, allusive dream about all the worlds that the solo horn can evoke, from woodland poetry to dark menace: it is a spellbinding piece, ingeniously structured and superbly written for the instrument, and it deserves to be widely heard. Knussen is a masterly orchestrator, and the only slight doubt I had about any of the music in this collection is that the orchestral colour and imagery in the Whitman settings are more graspable and more memorable than the vocal lines. Unalloyed pleasure otherwise, and strongly recommended.'
Bewitching these pieces certainly are, and although all are quite short none is a miniature. The Flourish, written for Michael Tilson Thomas’s first concert as Musical Director of the LSO, has lyrical substance as well as the appropriate ‘occasional’ brilliance. The Way to Castle Yonder is a very brief suite from
The most substantial works here and what might seem like the slightest are both in a sense dreams.
Knussen Conducts Knussen
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