Mementoes In Sound

This disk is described as a single, in olden times it would perhaps have been on a vinyl EP. It in fact contains a substantial 25 minute orchestral piece by contemporary British composer Richard Barrett entitled Vanity. It is performed here by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Tamayo. The piece is in three movements ( Sensorium, Memento and Residua ) which are played through in one complete span. It is a piece built on the structure of a chamber music piece with the expanded forces of the orchestra used as discrete blocks whereby whole sections play en mass as if they were one instrument. Part of the inspiration comes from 17th century still life vanitas paintings ( hence the work's title ) where each seprate detail must be exquisitely portrayed and is of equal importance to the whole and this applied here to individual and group musical conributions. The strings play an important underpinning role, occasionally moving to the foreground. There are also parts for braying brass interludes, notably trombone, while the piano and cimbalom often augment the mutltiple percussion instruments which come to the fore in the final segment Residua and give the work a continual forward momentum. The piece ends mysteriously with a brief and ghostly quote from Schubert's Death And The Maiden. A disk that repays repeated listening where more detail and structure is revealed.