Modern Tonality in Music

When I started work on Geyser last autumn I had decided I was done composing music that reflected the pain of the pandemic. This new piece was to be instead a celebration – of music, its welcome return and that unique atmosphere created by musicians when they meet to perform. Its mood was to be predominantly joyful and optimistic, while its title was a metaphor for the music’s underlying rhythmic energy, unleashed intermittently in ecstatic outbursts – like explosions of water and steam from a pressurised geothermal spring. (This idea of tension, boiling under the surface, is a theme I return to in a lot in my music.)

The three works presented here reveal distinctly different phases of Arnold Schoenberg's development, each a critical point of departure. In the Pieces (5) for Orchestra (1909), Schoenberg's atonal language appears full-blown and marks a clear break with tonality. For the first time, Schoenberg places content over form and dispenses with any pretenses toward classical objectivity or balance.

This year marks the 90th birthday of Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020), one of the most prominent 21st Century Polish composers. Sacred themes and texts surround the creative work of Penderecki, including many of his large-scale works. This album by the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir under Sigvards Klava consists the majority of his impressive sacred a cappella choral works from five different decades and which are mainly written in Latin. These deeply religious choral works are modern classics in choral repertoire. Recent album by the choir, featuring choral works by John Cage, received nomination for the Gramophone Awards 2023.

The English composer, Benedict Mason, has been called "one of the major talents in music today" by the critic Julian Anderson. The three works recorded on this disc introduce the work of a startlingly original voice. Mason's music incorporates a huge range of expression- from commonplace to the sublime. Barriers between tonality and non-tonality are swept aside easily by the force of Mason's musical argument, his broadly inclusive vision calling to mind such visionaries as Janacek, Mahler and Ives. Indeed, ghosts of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ives and even Elgar occasionally haunt the discourse of Mason's surreal landscape, projecting a brilliantly refractory sub-text, the music's surface always alive with humor and highly detailed invention.