BRIAN FERNEYHOUGH
Shadowtime Nieuw Ensemble, cond Jurjen Hempel
As even Paul Driver found Shadowtime "the acme of abstruseness", no wonder that Ferneyhough has had to seek and find fame and fortune in Europe and USA, but remains a rare presence in UK.
Taken a few scenes at a time at home, it is listenable to, sometimes almost beautiful, even though one ends with having no idea what Walter Benjamin (canonised since his suicide) and Charles Bernstein were on about!
Words cannot replace listening and deciding for yourself. NMC provides online snatches of the multitude of strangely titled tracks at http://www.nmcrec.co.uk/?page=catalogue/item.html&id=132. The second section Les froissments d'ailes de Gabriel ("to all intents and purposes a guitar concerto") is engaging, as is Nicholas Hodges, speaking pianist, in Scene IV.
Try a few samples, and then, for an extended appreciative review of a work that still baffles, do read Anne Ozorio in Music Web.
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