Lumsdaine, D - White Dawn
A lesson in musical possibility and artistic skill from a composer of rare sonic vision
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: David Lumsdaine
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Metier Sound & Vision
Magazine Review Date: 6/2011
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
Stereo
Catalogue Number: MSV28519
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Soundscapes, Movement: The billabong at sunset |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Gemini Martyn Brabbins, Conductor |
Soundscapes, Movement: Frogs at night |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Gemini Martyn Brabbins, Conductor |
Soundscapes, Movement: Raven Cry |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Gemini Martyn Brabbins, Conductor |
Soundscapes, Movement: Serenade |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Gemini Martyn Brabbins, Conductor |
Soundscapes, Movement: Hunting a Crested Bellbird for Dr. Gilbert at Palm Creek |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Gemini Martyn Brabbins, Conductor |
(A) Little Cantata in memoriam Tracey Chadwell |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer John Turner, Recorder Lesley-Jane Rogers, Soprano Peter Lawson, Piano |
Blue upon Blue |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Jonathan Price, Cello |
(6) Postcard Pieces |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Peter Lawson, Piano |
(A) Tree telling of Orpheus |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Gemini Lesley-Jane Rogers, Soprano Martyn Brabbins, Conductor |
Metamorphosis at Mullet Creek |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer John Turner, Recorder |
(A) Norfolk Songbook |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer John Turner, Recorder Lesley-Jane Rogers, Soprano |
Cambewarra |
David Lumsdaine, Composer
David Lumsdaine, Composer Peter Lawson, Piano |
Author: Philip_Clark
By taking five of Sydney-born David Lumsdaine’s field-recording-derived Australian soundscapes and interweaving them between his meticulously organised instrumental and chamber pieces, this superb anthology reveals what a false dichotomy the whole field recording/“conventional” composition debate can be. Lumsdaine’s soundscapes are as concerned with inner dialogues, counterpoint and structure as anything he commits to manuscript paper. Yes, art based on birdsong or on cicadas calling stimulates different sorts of response to music written for piano or cello but either way, Lumsdaine snatches empiric sound sources from an open-ended world of possibilities…
…like how his solo cello Blue upon Blue (1991) plays modally inflected melodic cycles off against scattering percussive pizzicato figurations; or how those chirping landscapes typical of his field recordings permeate inside the precisely crafted and aphoristic A Little Cantata (1996), where soprano voice and recorder quiver and hum together like two crickets on heat, an approach A tree telling of Orpheus (1990) uses over the larger scale.
But the best is last. The 30-minute solo piano Cambewarra (1980) is predicated on an assumption of space and silence which Lumsdaine delicately loads with fleeting mechanisms and modal melodies weighty enough to enhance, rather than pollute, the harmony of underlying stillness. These performances, by musicians associated with the Gemini Ensemble, prove deeply sensitive to Lumsdaine’s needs, with a special nod going to pianist Peter Lawson for negotiating Cambewarra’s secret labyrinths with such clarity of mind and finger.
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