BRIAN FERNEYHOUGH CHORAL WORKS (1966-2002)

MISSA BREVIS:
Kyrie-Gloria-Sanctus-Benedictus-Agnus Dei
THE DOCTRINE OF SIMILARITY:
Amphibolies I-Dust to Dusk-Cannot Cross-
Motetus absconditus-Amphibolies II-
But even fire is light-Sometimes-
Anagrammatica-Dew and Die-Schein-
Dusts to Dusks-Amphibolies III-Salute
TWO MARIAN MOTETS:
Ave mater gloriosa salvatoris
Alma redemptoris Mater
STELAE FOR FAILED TIME

BBC SINGERS + LONTANO/ODALINE DE LA MARTINEZ

It is good to have Metier back on Britain's contemporary music landscape after a period in which their essential releases had diminished; this important compilation, produced in association with BBC R3, is released by Divine Art, which has incorporated the Metier label into its group.

Ferneyhough's is (mostly) difficult music, but music that must not be ignored or overlooked. Try first the Marian Motets. The first struggles to articulate 'a jumble of words' reaching towards unison, a ravishing soprano eventually 'blossoming out of the texture'. The second is easier, 'tending towards homophony' but 'enriched with heterophonic divergences'. Hopefully you will hear it as beautiful, and certainly marvel at the expertise of the BBC Singers. Ferneyhough's divergences from the prevailing conservative UK scene led to a 'triple alienation', writes John Hails, effectively driving him abroad. You may wonder (now) if it was/is so far beyond the pale?

Next, tackle the Missa Brevis (1968-69), with its familiar text to give you a tenuous handhold. Challenging and experimental, with atomised fragments of singing and speaking, it could not fit in with Lennox Berkeley's teaching. Ferneyhough was entering 'the dangerous and precarious worlds of indeterminacy'. Finishing at the top of the range, with duration determined by the 1st soprano's breath capacity, it responds to open-eared repeated listening.

THE DOCTRINE OF SIMILARITY, with instrumental augmentation, comes from Ferneyhough's Walter Benjamin opera Shadowtime, which has made it back to UK and ENO. I have not seen any scores (and might have difficulty following them!) but there is a feeling of assurance and confidence which must owe a great deal to the meticulous and sensitive direction of the Singers by Odaline de la Martinez, whose work we hear too infrequently in London.  STELAE FOR FAILED TIME embraces IRCAM's electronic facilities in 'a sort of personal homage to Benjamin's known passion for small wind-up toys'! How can you resist?

Recorded in 2003-2005 in various locations, this CD has been produced, engineered and edited by David Lefeber to the high standards we have come to expect from Metier.

Peter Grahame Woolf