Since the early disappearance of an LP devoted to his vocal compositions (BBC, 12/77), very little of Anthony Payne’s music has been available on disc. Now NMC come to the rescue with this splendidly well-rounded recording of a 1990 BBC Prom commission. Payne tells us in his notes that, when starting the piece, he knew he would have to “struggle with … new techniques”. But there’s no feeling of struggle in any negative sense in this expansive and well-proportioned composition, which has all the substance of a symphony in one movement.
Payne was born in 1936, and his music, while utterly distinctive, can to some extent be linked with both the throughgoing romanticism of one near-contemporary, Nicholas Maw, and the more progressive, modernist qualities of others, like Hugh Wood or Alexander Goehr. The title, Time’s Arrow, refers to a formal principle that reverses from a still centre, not as a literal palindrome but in a freely evolving recapitulation in which the music’s structural and emotional climax is placed, with a strongly rooted melodic line building to heroic brass-led affirmations before a sudden end. Payne’s romantic roots are as fruitful here as his more modernistic attributes. The music deals with big issues through textures that are often dense but never congested. It could be that an even more impressive effect might be achieved if the music’s rhythmic profile were loosened up a little, but there’s still a symphonic breadth that sweeps all before it, and this excellent performance leaves one impatient for more Payne on disc.'