Waves Crash on Old Street

Piano Trio No 2 In Memoriam Spencer Boney was the result of a very specific and delicate request from Darragh Morgan of the Fidelio Trio to compose a piece to commemorate his friend and original pianist of the trio, Spencer Boney. The piece is in three movements and the second movement The Blue Eyed Lassie was inspired by the incredible, intimate and private singing style of Bess Cronin (Cork, 1879 - 1956).

Note by David Fennessy

The poetic idea behind the piece is expressed by the title Efflorescence which means a period or process of flowering. This is reflected especially in the harmonic and registral processes employed, through which various pitch constellations around a single note gradually unfold and expand, becoming a blossoming 12-note ‘kaleidoscopic flower’. Over its five minute duration the music conveys many states of being – from the intimate and intense to the ecstatic and exuberant – revealing, I hope, the emergence of beauty from something seemingly plain.

Note by Christian Mason

Clear Edge for piano was written not long after John Cage died. I was deeply moved by the warmth of his friendship - he was very much on my mind as I composed the work. 

Note by Barbara Monk Feldman

Lutra was written for Anton Lukoszevieze at his request in 2017. I have always loved the sound of natural harmonics on the cello and decided the piece would largely feature these – from the first to the eighth partial on all the strings for most of the piece, and on one occasion, up to the sixteenth partial on the C-string (thus bringing in my favourite harmonic: the eleventh partial). There is nothing novel about a string piece – even a solo string piece – that primarily uses natural harmonics, but I wanted to see if I could come up with a specific meandering organum – a texture my music often explores – using this soundworld (with the addition of occasional quiet humming; again nothing new, but an inclusion that never fails to get under my skin). I often have pieces where two very different textures are abutted without transition: anything from a short coda to a half-and-half proportion; the two parts of Lutra are someplace in-between in regard to comparative durations.  'Lutra' is a genus of otters.

Note by Martin Arnold

In 2014, Byström occupied herself with a series of pieces for solo stringed instruments. As much as these scores trained the techniques of the musicians who played them, they also served as ‘études’ or study pieces for Byström’s own technique – means of sharpening her understanding of the instrument in question, and of its compositional history in the hands of her predecessors.

Baum in der Stadt was written that year for solo violin. Its title, literally ‘Tree in the City’, was influenced by names given to his own paintings by the Swiss-born German artist Paul Klee, whose combination of expressionism, cubism, and a deep sensitivity to colour blurred the boundaries between art and design.

In parallel, Byström’s thought process started from architectural foundations, as she ‘combined certain building blocks’ before the work in question began to take on a life of its own. ‘The city is the construction,’ she said in an interview about the piece, ‘and out of it grows something with its own roots and its own life cycle – the tree.’ The score was thrust back into the spotlight in 2020 when it won the solo category at the so-called Swedish Chamber Games, in which scores written in the country are singled out for exposure abroad.

Like many of Byström’s works, Baum in der Stadt is rooted by a clear motif - a building block - heard right at the start: the piece’s first five notes, which travel up to a peak on the third note and down again, and which consistently fuel the music’s vitality thereafter. The music appears to search for the stability of the ‘open fifth’ interval (think the first jump in the tune Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star), combining plucked and bowed sounds even at the same time. A plucked passage induces a notably rhythmic variant on the motif and eventually, a more obsessively driven focus on the motif drives the work towards its six concluding low A’s.

Note by Andrew Mellor

Andrew Mellor is author of The Northern Silence - Journeys in Nordic Music and Culture (Yale University Press)

Talking to Ian Power about her piano works songs for a shed, Akama described going to the shed in her garden during lockdown in order to be creative. 10 days’ etude was written over ten days of this kind of going in – another portal to another place.

Note by Rufus Isabel Elliot

Haroldswick is based on an original tune I wrote following a visit to the island of Unst. One of the most northerly settlements in the British Isles, Haroldswick is thought to have been the first landing-point of the Vikings in Shetland. There is a reconstructed longhouse and a longship by the shore, as well as maritime and heritage museums, and the most northerly tearoom in the British Isles. The piece is a set of variations on the tune (which never quite appears in its original form), with regal, dissonant Bartókian chords combined with a Strathspey-like rhythm giving way to a skein of windswept harmonics, strangely distant and intimate at once: an attempt to evoke the enduring history and landscape of the place in music. 

Note by Stuart MacRae

Time rumples and fades to grimy, sun-bleached red, to washed blue, asleep under a blanket and alone in the world.

Note by Rufus Isabel Elliot

Artist Biographies

David Alberman

violin

David Alberman was Principal Second Violin in the LSO since from 1998–2023. Born in London, he received his LRAM diploma from the Royal Academy of Music at 16. After playing with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the LSO, he became a Concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. A long-standing interest in contemporary music led him in 1986 to join the internationally renowned Arditti Quartet, with whom he took part in the world premieres of more than 200 works, and made a number of recordings which won prizes internationally.

David enjoys coaching, has appeared as Guest Concertmaster for the LSO, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Scottish Chamber and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Bayrischer Rundfunkorchester, and as soloist with the Orchestre de Lille, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna, among others.

Louise McMonagle

cello

A Scottish cellist based in London, Louise McMonagle is a versatile performer who enjoys making music in many environments. Her playing has been described as 'especially vivid, with its powerful combination of precision and intensity' (Jonathan Russell, Bachtrack). Career highlights include winning the Ernst Von Siemens Ensemble prize (2020, as a member of the innovative Riot Ensemble), performing at Wigmore Hall (London), playing as soloist in Pierre Boulez's Messagesquisse at the VIVA Cello Festival (Switzerland), and recording Berio Sequenza XIV with Four Ten Media.

Mark Knoop

piano

An intrepid explorer of music of all ages, pianist and conductor Mark Knoop is known for his versatile technique and virtuosity. While focussing on the work of living composers, his individual interpretations of standard and 20th-century repertoire have drawn praise. In addition to solo performances, he regularly appears with ensembles Plus-Minus and Apartment House, and as duo partner with Juliet Fraser (soprano).

He has commissioned and premièred countless new works and worked with many respected composers including Joanna Bailie, Bernhard Lang, Jennifer Walshe, Matthew Shlomowitz, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Øyvind Torvund, and Akiko Ushijima. His recordings of music by John Cage (Wergo and Another Timbre), Morton Feldman (Another Timbre and all that dust), and Bryn Harrison (Another Timbre) have been lauded.

Mark performs regularly throughout Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia and has played in New Zealand, South Korea, Mongolia, United States of America, Canada and at festivals including Borealis (Bergen), Donaueschinger Musiktage, Huddersfield, Klangspuren (Schwaz), MaerzMusik (Berlin), Musiikin Aika (Viitasaari, Finland), Spor (Århus), Transit (Leuven), Ukho Music (Kiev), and Ultima (Oslo). He is co-director of all that dust, an independent record label for new music.