Clues, Signals And Improvisation

Contemporary English composer Peter Wiegold occupies an interesting position straddling the worlds of improvised music and notated composition. This dic, Earth and Stars, gives a good indication of where this approach has recently been taking him. There are four works on the disc, two featuring his performing group notes inegales who perhaps exemplify this dual approach and two of a more traditional nature with the Southbank Sinfonia and a soprano / pianist combination. The latter, a collection of settings of poems by Jo Shapcott written in response to the writings of Rilke and titled Les Roses, is performed by soprano Juliet Fraser and fellow composer Martin Butler on piano. There are faint jazzy tinges to both the vocal and piano contributions. The Southbank Sinfonia are here conducted by Wiegold himself in the piece Earth, Receive an Honoured Guest which is named after a poem written by Auden commemorating Yeats. Not especially funereal but certainly elegiac, it is a showpiece for the cor anglais of Melinda Maxwell and there is also a significant solo viola part played by Christopher Beckett. Of the two notes inegales pieces ( the group eschews capital letters ) Kalachakra is perhaps the most challenging. They are a group of performers devoted to improvisation to given clues and signals from Wiegold and include brass, percussion, strings, wind and the piano of Butler in a flexible lineup of up to a dozen. Kalachakra expands outwards from a central bell like theme celebrating Tibetan Buddhist disciplines. The title work also featuring notes inegales, is the more immediately accessible and has a Viennese theme with inspirations ranging from Mozart, his pet starling, the decadent fin de siecle period through to the work of the second school. There are reflections on death and funereal rites but also on infinity and rebirth and the shadow of jazz is ever present.