Guest of the Month February 2011: Laurence Crane
Laurence Crane’s music is mainly written for the concert hall, although his list of works include pieces initially composed for film, radio, theatre, dance and installation. He was born in Oxford in 1961 and studied composition with Peter Nelson and Nigel Osborne at Nottingham University.
His music has been widely performed in Britain, Europe and North America by numerous ensembles and musicians but he has particularly close working relationships with Apartment House (UK), the Ives Ensemble (Netherlands) and Plus Minus Ensemble (UK / Belgium) who presented a portrait concert of Crane’s work at King’s Place in London on 21 February 2011 to celebrate his 50th birthday year.
In 2006 he was commissioned by the Zaterdag Matinee concert series in the Netherlands to write West Sussex Folk Material for the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Thierry Fischer. This work was given its premiere in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
Recent music includes Piano Piece no.23 ‘Ethiopian Distance Runners’, for pianist Philip Thomas, and Sound of Horse, for the Norwegian ensemble asamisimasa, both completed in 2009. He is currently working on a piece for the 9-piece amplified ensemble Decibel and a piano quintet for Andrew Matthews-Owen and the Brodowski String Quartet.
The Fall ‘The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004’
I find it difficult to get through a day without listening to something by The Fall. Their discography is huge; 28 studio albums, 35 live albums and 40 compilation albums and despite devoting a considerable amount of my time and a significant proportion of my income to my Fall collection over the last 25 years there are still several albums that I have never heard. Of those I do know I think my favourite is This Nation’s Saving Grace, from 1985. But if I were in a desert island discs-type situation (to which this is the nearest I have ever got) I would pick this 6 CD compilation of all the sessions they ever did for John Peel’s programmes. The Fall were Peel’s favourite band and the comprehensive booklet notes with this box set re-tell the wonderful story of how Peel passed out through sheer excitement live on air as one of the new session tracks was playing for the first time and had to be revived by his producer, John Walters.
John Cage ‘Complete Music for Prepared Piano’
I recently took part in a seminar on Cage’s work with Art curation students at Goldsmiths College in London. The seminar was mainly about 4’33” and its influence in the fine art world but the session also explored some of the many other aspects of Cage’s work. I’ve been listening to his prepared piano music and particularly this very good recording by Giancarlo Simonacci. The prepared piano, which Cage invented in the early 1940s, was such a brilliant invention that no one would have blamed him for spending the rest of his life writing for it. A lesser composer would have done that; Cage being Cage he spent the best part of a decade creating a sublime body of work for it and then promptly moved directly onto his next preoccupation – indeterminacy – and never wrote for the prepared piano again.
Michael Finnissy ‘The Transgressive Gospel’
Michael Finnissy’s music has been a constant presence in my life ever since I heard the first radio broadcast of his ensemble work Alongside in 1980. The sound of his music is so distinctive, you can tell it’s him right from the start of any piece of his, this fact all the more remarkable because of the range of interests – both musical and extra-musical – that he admits into his creative world. The Transgressive Gospel is a good example of that; it alludes to Bach, the blues and middle-eastern folk music and – characteristically for this composer – uses film as a model, in this case works by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Carl Theodor Dreyer. Finnissy also makes stunning use of two very different voice types – Richard Jackson and Kate Westbrook in the first performance. It’s nearly 2 hours long and he started working on a version of it as long ago as 1969, it came to fruition at the 2009 Spitalfields Festival where it was performed by Finnissy’s favourite ensemble, Ixion. I’ve been listening a lot to a recording of the premiere, I wasn’t there unfortunately but I would love to hear it live and really hope it is done again soon.
Christian Wallumrød Ensemble ‘Fabula Suite Lugano’
Christian Wallumrød is a composer and pianist from Oslo; this collection of pieces was released on CD in 2009. They are mostly composed by Wallumrød but there is also some creative input from the members of his ensemble. Wallumrød has a real gift for melody and also mixes colours effortlessly; his ensemble includes Hardanger Fiddle and Baroque Harp. The pieces are elegant, beautiful and strange and definitely repay repeated listening. Very lovely and, naturally as it’s on ECM, beautifully recorded.
Earth Wind and Fire ‘Let’s Groove – The Best of Earth Wind and Fire’
I keep returning to this on my iPod, perhaps it’s because dire economic times require uplifting music or maybe it’s just because it’s brilliant. My favourite song is In The Stone. Or maybe it’s You Can’t Hide Love. Or perhaps… I don’t know, they’re all great songs.