Description
Adrian Williams, Symphony No. 1 & Chamber Concerto: Portrait of Ned Kelly
“This remarkable work is one of two by Williams to grow from his friendship with the great Australian painter,Sidney Nolan. Nolan and Williams were neighbours in the Welsh Borders region that Williams has called home for most of the last forty years. Williams, a prolific pianist, was given the invitation to use the piano atThe Rodd, Nolan’s house in northwest Herefordshire and now the home of the Sidney Nolan Trust. The Chamber Concerto is a musical response to Nolan’s most famous series of paintings, which depict scenesfrom the wild life of Australian bushranger, Ned Kelly, an outlaw, gang leader and convicted police murderer who rampaged across Australia in the years prior tohis arrest and execution in 1880. Williams’ music almost always has a virtuosic edge to it, but the demands placed on the musicians in this work are truly extraordinary, yet it is incredibly rewarding to play. In this sense, Williams’ designation of the work as a concerto is both telling and apt is it demands that everyone in the ensemble contributes their utmost in rhythmic precision, agility, accuracy in extremes of register and lyrical storytelling.” Kenneth Woods
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From MusicWeb International
http://www.musicweb-international.com/Classrev/2022/Sep/Williams-sy1-NI6432.htm
Adrian Williams (b. 1956)
Symphony No 1 (2020)
Chamber Concerto: Portrait of Ned Kelly (1998)
English Symphony Orchestra/Kenneth Woods
rec. 2021, Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, UK
NIMBUS NI6432 [70]
Where better to learn about Adrian Williams than through a profile of him by Christopher Thomas and an interview with the composer? A list of works can also be found at that page. There is also the composer’s own website.
Early on in his teens, Williams worked with Lennox Berkeley. There is much else to tell but I will limit myself to two salient points: Williams has been closely associated with Raphael Wallfisch for whom he wrote a Cello Concerto in 2008; for the Amsterdam string orchestra Williams arranged versions of An Die ferne geliebte and of Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad. These were very much with Thomas Hampson in mind.
From 2019 until 2021 he was the John McCabe Composer in Association for the English Symphony Orchestra. The symphony – one of the composer’s longest duration pieces – bears a dedication to Kenneth Woods ‘for giving me hope’. The fact that it runs substantially almost 50 minutes in a world noted for being inimical or indifferent to large-scale pieces from contemporary composers is testimony to the level of hope instilled in Woods. The Symphony’s writing took some three years. To be treasured is that the work’s recording here is directed by the dedicatee conducting the orchestra Williams had in active contemplation for the work.
The Symphony is tonal but often overwrought and densely woven. There are some late Sibelian echoes in the fabric from time to time. The first movement’s long singing lines are cut across by violence from brass and percussion. This is indeed violence; no mere petulance. When this element is played out – the mood becomes restful and becalmed. The second movement is a fairly short and hyperactive Scherzando. Before it is over and done with Williams makes common cause (no doubt unwittingly) with the sort of stamping downward curving figures to be found in Panufnik’s Sinfonia Elegiaca and woodwind caprices that echo Stravinsky’s Firebird. The third movement oscillates between demonic Mahlerian passages and poignantly moving writing especially from 7:00 onwards. The composer writes that “its slow movement [was] inspired by the distressing media coverage of the wild fires in Australia and the terrible loss of life.” This is not to reflect the firestorms themselves but the wretched devastation of the land and of the soul. This struck me as the most heartfelt movement of the four. The finale is surreal – which is not to say dreamy. It is intensely Romantic and reflective for much of the time but has its episodes of ecstatic upswelling. If we are looking for similarities (my usual low-brow game and one I cannot resist), then I detect La Mer and the delicious complexity of 1940s Martinu with bell sounds evoked by the orchestral piano. Remarkably, the work concludes with a positive confident simplicity, all tension resolved.
The Chamber Concerto is said by the composer to reflect Ned Kelly’s ‘exploits’ and grew from Williams’ friendship with the Australian painter, Sidney Nolan. It hardly matters but frankly I cannot detect the Kelly aspect. What I hear is a single movement Stravinskian piece that is riven, dissolute, chaotic and in mercurially busy crystalline motion. There’s a feral jungle dance at 5:25. At 09:00 the maelstrom of sound begins to draw breath and becomes more of a largo than a truculent vivace. This blizzard of sounds from 11 players and 14 instruments (doubling) leaves you reeling. It was written for the Brunel Ensemble conducted by Christopher Austin.
He has written a lot but now I would very much like to hear Williams’ Thomas Hardy-based tone poem Tess (1982). I note that he does not list this work at his website among ‘selected listening’. I see that Williams worked with Carl Davis whose music for the BBCTV adaptation of “The Mayor of Casterbridge” in the early 1980s, is amongst Davis’s finest inspirations.
The disc booklet comprises the usual artist profiles but naturally leads off with essays on the two works in the composer’s own words and in those of the conductor. Ken Woods and the expanded forces of the ESO (whose personalia are listed in the booklet) give every sign of plumbing the measure of this otherwise unfamiliar music.
The generosity of the Trust established in the name of the composer Steven R Gerber (1948-2015) seems to have been decisive in the funding of this disc. I should add that Gerber’s orchestral works can be heard via three labels: Koch, Chandos and Arabesque.
The English Symphony Orchestra’s 21st Century Symphony Project is being pursued by the discreetly ever-productive Nimbus and principally through Kenneth Woods. We have already had instalments in the form of Matthew Taylor’s symphonies 4 and 5 and 9 and Philip Sawyers’ Symphony 8 (NI6353) and Violin Concerto (review). There’s more of Taylor and Sawyers to be found on Nimbus and elsewhere. Adrian Williams now joins the Project in emphatic and substantial style.
Rob Barnett
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From Arcana.FM
https://arcana.fm/2022/10/04/eso-adrian-williams-3/
On Record – English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods – Adrian Williams: Symphony no.1, Chamber Concerto (Nimbus Alliance)
Adrian Williams
Symphony no.1 (2020)
Chamber Concerto: Portraits of Ned Kelly (1998)
English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
Nimbus Alliance NI6432 [70’31’’]
Producers/Engineers Phil Rowlands, Tim Burton
Recorded 8 April 2021 (Chamber Concerto), 1-2 December 2021 (Symphony) at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
This latest release in the English Symphony Orchestra’s 21st Symphony Project features its most ambitious instalment yet in the First Symphony by Adrian Williams (b1956), coupled with a no less eventful piece by this ‘dark horse’ among British composers of his generation.
What’s the music like?
Although having written various orchestral works, Williams had never tackled the symphonic genre before prior to being the ESO’s John McCabe Composer-in-Association in 2019 (he is currently its Composer Emeritus) but has confronted the challenge head-on. Playing almost 50 minutes and scored for an orchestra including triple woodwind, five horns, four trumpets and four percussionists with harp, piano and celesta, the work is evidently a summation of where its composer felt he had reached over the course of his musical odyssey. Yet for all its textural complexity and its pervasive richness of thought, this is music created out of basic motifs; the initial three notes generating the first movement’s main themes, as well as essentializing that longer term tonal goal as remains a focal point towards which intervening activity is directed.
From its imposing Maestoso epigraph, the opening Stridente unfolds against the background of (without necessarily adhering to) sonata-form design – its motivic components drawn into a continuous and frequently combative evolution purposefully unresolved at the close. There follows a Scherzando that eschews ternary design for a through-composed format proceeding by tension and release to a decisive ending. The expressive crux of the whole work, the Lento evinces a plangent and desolate tone whose sparse textures and elliptical harmonies re-affirm that ‘less is more’ maxim. Despite its Energico marking the finale unfolds with slow-burning momentum, made the more cumulative by channelling its motivic evolution toward a Dolente apotheosis whose outcome proves as inevitable formally as it feels transcendent emotionally.
The artist Sidney Nolan was latterly a neighbour of Williams, his powerfully un-romanticized evocations of famed Australian outlaw Ned Kelly directly influencing this Chamber Concerto. Its pungent opening sets wind quintet against string quartet, with double-bass and harp adding subtle contributions as the piece unfolds. The inward central section builds towards a febrile culmination – after which, wind and strings are drawn into a monody which brings a resigned though hardly serene ending. A purposeful overall trajectory ensures cohesion at every stage.
Does it all work?
Absolutely. These are impressive piece in terms of their ambition but also realization. There are considerable technical challenges on route, but they are met with conviction and no little resourcefulness by an expanded ESO which is often tested but never fazed. Kenneth Woods directs with his customary attention to detail as goes a long way toward clarifying music that is ‘complex and luminous’ in spirit as by design. Williams has evidently been waiting for this opportunity to contribute to the symphonic tradition and his execution rarely, if ever, falters.
Is it recommended?
Indeed. The recording is as focussed and spacious as is necessary, and there are informative notes from composer and conductor. Next from this source is a release of concertos by Philip Sawyers, then one of symphonic works by the current Composer-in-Association Steve Elcock.
This recording is released on Friday 7 October 2022.
You can watch the world premiere of Adrian Williams’ Symphony no.1 on the English Symphony Orchestra website, and you can listen to clips from the recording at the Presto website. For more information on the composer, visit the Adrian Williams website – and for more on Sidney Nolan click here. Click on the names of Kenneth Woods and English Symphony Orchestra for their websites.
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From Adventures in Music
https://jarijuhanikallio.wordpress.com/2022/03/25/the-eso-and-woods-unveil-adrian-williamss-astounding-symphony-no-1/
The ESO and Woods unveil Adrian Williams’s astounding Symphony No. 1
The English Symphony Orchestra in session with their Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Kenneth Woods. © ESO Digital
The latest installment in the English Symphony Orchestra’s marvellous online series with their Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Kenneth Woods presents us with a tremendous premiere recording of Adrian Williams’s stunning Symphony No. 1 (2018-21). Commissioned by Woods and the orchestra, as a part of their 21st Century Symphony Project, the score was, for the most part, written in 2018-2019, followed by a series of revisions carried out over the next two years.
Scored for an orchestra of duple winds, with piccolo and cor anglais added, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, keyboards, harp and strings, the four-movement, fifty-minute symphony is an astounding affair; impressively devised both in terms of architecture and narrative.
The symphony is launched with a substantial, fourteen-minute Maestoso – Stridente first movement. Opening with a short introduction for violins and violas, and followed by a response from full orchestra, the movement is built upon two interrelated main themes, which keep recurring throughout the symphony. As the movement unravels, the musical material is transformed into the most spellbinding guises, taking some unexpected turns here and there.
Midway into the movement, there is a wonderfully meditative passage, where the textures are beautifully thinned down into almost Bernard Herrmann-like economy. From here, the music builds up to fully-fledged orchestral tapestry of extraordinary vividness, rounding off the movement with captivating intensity.
The second movement is a virtuoso scherzo, altering between 3/8, 4/8 and 5/8. There’s plenty of sardonic bite in the textures, as the musical lines venture throughout the orchestra. A case in point of ingenious instrumentation and intricate rhythms, the scherzo is a thrilling movement for start to finish.
In contrast to the tour-de-force scherzo, the slow movement, marked lento, is conceived as an extended lament of sublime intensity, rooted in the composer’s emotional response to the harrowing images of the wild fires in Australia. The movement opens with a mist-hued introduction for strings and clarinet, joined by solo cello, cor anglais, harp and trumpet. Airy flutes sound their calls over sustained strings, and the music almost comes to a standstill.
At the core of the movement, the opening material is developed into deeply moving instrumental statements of sorrow and contemplation, with anguished overtones. The most sublime passage for flute, cor anglais, harp and strings ensues, eventually landing on a double bass drone. Closing the slow movement, there is a simple but striking instrumental afterthought; a brief string passage, followed by a woodwind echo, evaporating into silence.
The symphony concludes with an astonishing seventeen-minute Finale. Opening with rumbling double-basses and contrabassoon, joined by full orchestra on the following pages, the music is awash with sonic energy. As the Finale proceeds, delicate textures take over, giving rise to a dream-like sequence, echoing the soundscapes of the previous movement. Reflective and translucent, the orchestra fabric builds up to terrific sonic fantasy, one of the absolute highlights of Williams’s score.
The contemplative mood is interrupted by murmuring bassoons and timpani, joined by agitated trumpet heralds. A vehement orchestral passage ensues, with tensions mounting alongside colliding musical lines. For a moment, the sonic storm seems to be cooling down into an elegiac passage, but that is not to be. Another formidable build-up ensues and the symphony closes with staggering waves of sound crashing against the rocks of a distant shore.
A powerful outing for a substantial symphonic statement, the ESO and Woods performance is one of gripping intensity and fine-tuned detail. There are beautiful solo passages beyond count, and the tutti sections present us with an orchestra of gorgeous sonorities. Compellingly shaped by Woods, the symphony’s dedicatee, the score is unraveled with extraordinary intensity and awe-inspiring beauty. A powerful addition to the 21st century repertoire, the unveiling of Adrian Williams’s Symphony No. 1 is one to remember and cherish.
English Symphony Orchestra
Kenneth Woods, conductor
Adrian Williams: Symphony No. 1 (2018-21)
Recorded at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth on 1-2 December 2021
First released on ESO Digital on 25 March 2022
© Jari Kallio
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From Classical Music Daily
https://www.classicalmusicdaily.com/2022/03/williams.htm
I have just had the privilege to be able to hear this very new work, and this is the first music I have heard by this composer of whom Yehudi Menuhin wrote ‘master of intricate patterns and forms’. I have to say that I was suitably impressed. This forty-seven-minute piece is original and impressive and in the tradition of a true symphony. There are moments of considerable power, and also moments of great beauty. It was largely composed in 2018-2019 and received some revisions before being finally completed in 2021.
The first page of the full score for Adrian Williams’ Symphony No 1
The first page of the full score for Adrian Williams’ Symphony No 1
The symphony opens with a bold, unison string passage that gives way to a strong and energetic full orchestra. A series of more delicate sections follow, and there are times when one feels a restlessness held in check, which one knows is going to emerge again. It attempts to several times, but it doesn’t fully emerge again until the final few bars of the movement.
Listen — Adrian Williams: First Movement (Symphony No 1)
(10:03-10:55) ? 2022 English Symphony Orchestra :
The second movement, a scherzando, is fast and playful, asks a lot of the players technically, and there is some brilliant writing for the clarinet. The florid wind writing, spiky brass and percussion, and shimmering string writing remind me a lot of Stravinsky’s The Firebird, and Adrian Williams is certainly a master orchestrator. This is probably the easiest movement for a first-time listener of this symphony.
Listen — Adrian Williams: Second Movement (Symphony No 1)
(16:35-17:20) ? 2022 English Symphony Orchestra :
The third movement is the composer’s emotional response to some images of recent bushfires in Australia that were particularly devastating and where there was considerable loss of life and property, as well as the effect it had on the flora and fauna. This is an intense lament, that at times becomes anguish and shock, but there are moments of great reflection and stillness as if one is looking over a desolate charred landscape.
Listen — Adrian Williams: Third Movement (Symphony No 1)
(22:52-23:40) ? 2022 English Symphony Orchestra :
The final movement is the longest, at over seventeen minutes. Low bass rumblings reinforced by contrabassoon and low brass soon give way to energetic exuberance by the rest of the orchestra. That does not last long: the music slows down and there is a tender violin solo which eventually evolves into a luscious flute solo. This weaves through the orchestra and leads to a more impassioned, but still slow section. There are many slow, sustained tension and release elements in this music, but in true style, the music builds to a dramatic ending. In this movement, I constantly think of Sibelius: even though the musical language is very different, many of the elements of thematic development and texture, at least to my ears, are there.
Listen — Adrian Williams: Fourth Movement (Symphony No 1)
(47:37-48:35) ? 2022 English Symphony Orchestra :
I am impressed by the playing of the English Symphony Orchestra, and whilst there are not many long solos, there are lots of short ones, and the technical demands are high on all the players. Ensemble is also very important, and all sections are balanced and disciplined. Conductor Kenneth Woods’ direction is clear and assured, and the recording is clear and well balanced with great presence.
Kenneth Woods conducting the English Symphony Orchestra at the end of Adrian Williams’ Symphony No 1
Kenneth Woods conducting the English Symphony Orchestra at the end of Adrian Williams’ Symphony No 1
I believe there will a CD release of this recording on Nimbus later in the year, and this would be one well worth purchasing.
Copyright © 26 March 2022 Geoff Pearce,
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From Sonagrama Magazine
https://sonograma.org/suplement-de-discos/symphony-no-1-adrian-williams/
Original in Catalan
El compositor Adrian Williams va néixer el 1956 i va mostrar un talent precoç per al piano quan era petit. Al llarg de la seva carrera, la seva brúixola vital ha consistit a buscar nous horitzons creatius. La seva música és de caràcter polièdric i fins i tot eclèctic; ha compost música per a cinema i televisió, i ha begut de les fonts de la cançó anglesa, el jazz i el minimalisme.
La seva primera simfonia, en quatre moviments, va ser escrita per al Projecte Simfònic del Segle XXI de l’Orquestra Simfònica Anglesa, dirigida per Kenneth Woods, durant la primavera del 2018. El compositor confessa a les notes del disc que «la Simfonia núm. 1 està dedicada a Kenneth Woods i a i l’Orquestra Simfònica Anglesa per la seva generosa dedicació; es tracta d’una de les meves peces de més gran escala».
La Simfonia núm. 1 és una obra acolorida i esclatant de quatre moviments, cadascun dels quals té un llenguatge més aviat heterogeni: a vegades mostren un lirisme i una sensualitat a flor de pell i en d’altres una radiant força emotiva. Val a dir que les exigències de la partitura d’aquesta obra són realment extraordinàries, però molt gratificants. Woods, un director de gran rigor, mostra amb la seva orquestra el compromís explícit d’interioritzar l’obra de Williams.
Quant a la segona obra d’aquest disc, el Chamber Concerto: Portraits of Ned Kelly (‘Concert de cambra: retrats de Ned Kelly’), és excepcionalment virtuosa, inspirada en les pintures del seu amic australià Sidney Nolan, que representen escenes de la vida salvatge del bandoler australià Ned Kelly (1854-1880). Crida l’atenció el caràcter inquietant de la música —cal destacar la utilització percussiva del piano— per mitjà de la tensió del fraseig, d’un aire bel·licós i d’un lirisme intens.
Una notable contribució al panorama discogràfic de la composició actual a Anglaterra.
Text: Marçal Borotau
Composer Adrian Williams was born in 1956 and showed a precocious talent for the piano as a child. Throughout his career, his vital compass has been to seek new creative horizons. His music is multifaceted and even eclectic; he has composed music for film and television, and has drawn from the sources of English song, jazz and minimalism.
His first symphony, in four movements, was written for the 21st Century Symphony Project of the English Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Woods, during the spring of 2018. The composer confesses in the disc notes that ” Symphony no . . 1 is dedicated to Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra for his generous dedication; it is one of my largest-scale pieces».
The Symphony no. 1it is a colorful and explosive work of four movements, each of which has a rather heterogeneous language: at times they display a lyricism and a raw sensuality and at others a rather emotive radiance. It is worth saying that the demands of the score for this work are truly extraordinary, but very rewarding. Woods, a conductor of great rigor, shows with his orchestra an explicit commitment to internalize Williams’s work.
As for the second work on this disc, the Chamber Concerto: Portraits of Ned Kelly (‘Chamber Concert: Portraits of Ned Kelly’), is exceptionally virtuoso, inspired by the paintings of his Australian friend Sidney Nolan, which depict scenes from the wild life of the Australian bandit Ned Kelly (1854-1880). The unsettling nature of the music draws attention – the percussive use of the piano is noteworthy – through the tension of the phrasing, a bellicose air and an intense lyricism.
A remarkable contribution to the recording landscape of the current composition in England.
Text : Marçal Borotau
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Rome Pizzicato
https://www.pizzicato.lu/meister-komplizierter-muster-und-formen/
When you read the titular quote from Yehudi Menuhin about this 1956-born British composer, you don’t really know whether or not to be deterred from listening to the music. These first recordings are then, let us say, exciting and new in their language, thus stimulating and worth being heard. They are not frightening, especially since the tonality does not also make great capers and in this respect the ear is not overstrained. It may also contribute to this that lyricism and accessibility are important to the composer to this day. « What matters to me is that my music touches people. I write for an audience. »
In duration, three-quarters of an hour, and form, four movements, the symphony initially presents a classical image and thus represents a contemporary continuation of this type of form. Written between 2018 and 2021, the strings are given the task of opening the work full of energy. As the first movement progresses, quieter sections can then be heard, but they are punctuated with restlessness that only takes over at the end. The Scherzando that follows is quite typically fast and playful, requiring technical skill. With solo clarinet as well as wide-ranging tasks for the winds and percussion, Adrian Williams proves that he knows how to orchestrate excellently.
The slow movement is a lament. With it, Williams reacts emotionally to the devastating bushfires in Australia. Fear and shock form one side, moments of great thoughtfulness and silence the other. The last movement, which makes up more than a third of the work, opens deeply rumbling by basses, contrabassoon and low brass until the full orchestra joins in energetically. Delicate solos by violin and flute follow until more passionate moments are heard again. Through elements of tension and relief, the music then rises, as it were in keeping with the style, to a dramatic ending.
The chamber concerto Portraits of Ned Kelly for eleven musicians is inspired by the paintings of Sidney Nolan, who painted the Australian outlaw and bushranger Ned Kelly. This brilliant and virtuosic work may sound like a modern day Till Eulenspiegel drugged out of his mind. It’s funny, surreal and somehow also moving.
During his time as composer in association with the English Symphony Orchestra, the symphony was written as part of a series of the orchestra’s 21st century symphonies. The orchestra, under the baton of its leader Kenneth Woods, is at its best in the many rather brief solos and besides that in the ensemble as a whole. Despite the many demands on all participants, no weaknesses show. The ensemble is balanced and disciplined and shows the necessary intensity. The direction by Kenneth Woods results in a clearly structured performance that presents the music with verve. The recording is clear and balanced and very present, but not obtrusive.
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Records International
https://www.recordsinternational.com/cd.php?cd=11Y004
The British symphony is alive and well – and if anything is going from strength to strength, if the recent revelation of works by Hackbridge Johnson (08U009 et al.), Elcock ( 09T001 et al.) and (Pickard (07T008 et al.) are anything to go by. And now we have a ruggedly powerful 47-minute First Symphony by a composer who arrived at the genre at the age of 63 (having previously achieved an impressive output in other forms) and already clearly belongs in the company of his aforementioned illustrious peers and their antecedents – Daniel Jones, Robert Simpson, Peter Racine Fricker, and the Nordic symphonists of the 20th century. The first, second, and fourth movements are characterised by their restless rhythmic energy and the constant tension between ambiguously related tonal centres – very much a common preoccupation of modern British symphonists – producing a form of extended tonality (some composers like the term “metatonality”) that functions less in the manner of pre-modern chromaticism than by juxtaposing relationships between – sometimes distant and shockingly unanticipated – key centres. The first movement begins with a leaping, wide-spanning theme in the strings, and immediately transforms into a vigorous development of the theme, characterised by quicksilver changes of textures and instrumentation. Alternately warlike, ominously subdued, agitated, eerily calm and stridently disputatious, it is soon joined by a second subject beginning with a rearrangement of the opening notes of the first, and the rest of the movement is taken up by a struggle for supremacy between these themes and their implied tonal centres. Throughout, the cascading tumult of orchestral colours and densities of texture play a rôle in the symphonic argument almost equal to the thematic and harmonic clashes. The following movement is a scampering, burlesque, brittle scherzo, described by the composer as “rumbustious and virtuosic”. The time-worn cliché “The slow movement is the heart of the work” has never been more true than it is of the emotionally wrenching, utterly despairing movement that follows. Williams has connections to Australia – more on that shortly – and around the time when he was planning the third movement he was profoundly moved by the harrowing news footage of the wildfires that ravaged parts of the continent and the thousands upon thousands of dead and dying animals left in their wake. The music is an extended lament, with no attempt made to lighten or relieve the complete desolation of its imagery. We traverse a devastated, blasted desert of ash dotted with barely recognisable forms and inhabited only by ghastly spectres and evanescent coils of smoke. Passages dominated by the bass registers of the orchestra suggest a landscape stripped back to bare rock and scorched earth, devoid of any vestige of life, or even its lingering memory. After this emotionally shattering movement it is a relief to be assailed by the minatory mutterings that preface the finale. Several themes emerge, and the movement gathers momentum and weight but is suddenly arrested in its tracks, remaining in a doleful state of suspended animation and expectant, pent-up energy as the tension gradually rises. The ominous rumblings from the opening of the movement return, and the reappearance of the three-note motif that begins the symphony’s very first, and principal, theme heralds the arrival of the tumultuous, swirling mælstrom of the work’s final climax. The first and second subjects from the first movement engage in their last battle, the second emerging in hard-won triumph only at the very end. Williams developed a close friendship with the great Australian painter, Sidney Nolan (1917-92), who lived near the composer in the Welsh Borders region after moving to the UK from Australia in 1951. Nolan’s series of paintings depicting episodes in the life of the notorious, celebrated bushranger, gang leader, murderer, and outlaw Ned Kelly were the source of inspiration for Williams’ 1998 Chamber Concerto. Nolan’s surreal representation of Kelly’s iconic improvised body armour and the stark Australian bush landscape are reflected in the hard-edged, harsh, spiky idiom of Williams’ ferociously virtuosic score, which depicts with rude vigour the violent escapades of the outlaw’s life, against a tense, foreboding background landscape of rock, scrub, and baked earth.
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Gavin Dixon – Fanfare Magazine
http://www.classical-cd-reviews.com/2022/12/adrian-williams-symphony-no-1-kenneth.html
This album is the fifth in the 21st Century Symphony Project, a commissioning campaign by conductor Kenneth Woods, designed to survey the contemporary symphony in the UK, and also presumably to give it a boost. Previous recordings have showcased new symphonies by Matthew Taylor, Philip Sawyers, and David Matthews. Woods has an impressive loyalty to each, and the completion and performance of one symphony often leads to a further commission for the project.
Adrian Williams (b. 1956) is new to the symphonic form, but not to large-scale orchestral writing: his Cello Concerto was given at the Proms in 2009. Woods approached Williams to write this symphony, and the work is dedicated to him, “for giving me hope,” as Williams puts it.
On the whole, I would rate this new symphony a major success. Williams has a style that works beautifully with the large scale and the abstraction of symphonic writing, and there is never any sense that he is over-extending his ideas or struggling to fill the time. He has his own distinctive voice, making comparisons with other composers difficult and often misleading. However, his conception of the symphony as a form owes much to Shostakovich and Sibelius. I’m also reminded of Walton’s First Symphony, especially in the way that Williams’s first movement unfolds so naturally, the music expansive and dramatic, but also coolly confident and assured.
In his brief liner introduction, Williams writes that the work begins with a rising motif, Eb–F–C, and that this returns throughout. The motif itself carries much of the work’s character. Its rising profile matches the “hope” of the dedication, and through much of the work we hear the rising motif against darker backgrounds—hope in the face of despair. The motif is also made up of tonal intervals, although it does not fit into any obvious tonality. That, too, reflects the harmonic language of the music, broadly consonant and usually tied to tonal centers, though often with modern-sounding harmonic complexes. Williams writes that the structure is based on a conflict between tonal centers derived from the motif, Eb and F.
The work is in a traditional four-movement structure. The second movement is a lively Scherzando, though still with some agogic weight. The third is a smooth Lento. This was the last part of the symphony to be completed, and was motivated by news footage of bush fires in Australia. Another late modification was the (relatively) positive character of the finale. This last movement is huge, almost 18 minutes, but plays out as a smooth and gradual intensification of broadly consonant orchestral textures. Structurally, it is the most ambitious section of the symphony, and, as with everything before, it succeeds in matching its material to its scale.
For me, the first movement is the best part of this new symphony. The variety of material and expression is well balanced against the inscrutable but highly coherent structure. The four movements do not have enough variety between them: the second is too similar to the first, and the third is too similar to the fourth. Of course, you can hear it as a grand two-movement form à la Saint-Saëns, and as such it works fine.
The coupling is an earlier Williams work, the Chamber Concerto of 1998. The work’s subtitle “Portraits of Ned Kelly” points to a remarkable friendship. At the time, Williams was a neighbor of the Australian painter Sidney Nolan on the Welsh borders. Nolan even let Williams practice on his piano. The Chamber Concerto was inspired by Nolan’s famous series of portraits of Ned Kelly. Kenneth Woods writes in his liner note that the piece originally had a narrative, which closely followed Kelly’s exploits, but became more abstract as composition progressed. Nevertheless, you hear a chase on horseback, mid-way through, with driving col legno from the strings. The abrupt ending also suggests Kelly’s death by hanging, and Woods rightly points to Till Eulenspiegel as a model.
The scale of the textures belies the modest instrumentation, just 11 players, one-to-a-part stings and woodwinds, plus French horn and harp. The opening is as arresting as that of the symphony, and Williams again shows an impressive talent for extended forms, the work in a single movement of 22 minutes. Again, the style is so distinctive that it is hard to name influences. A European Modernism, from Russian-period Stravinsky through to Ligeti, has been taken on board and digested into a distinctive approach. The textures are often prickly, scurrying stings and staccato woodwind interjections. The horn (James Topp) is a dominant presence in most of the sections, its more rounded sound bringing focus to the otherwise disparate textures.
Performances and recording are as fine as we have come to expect from Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra. Both pieces find the players in excellent form, and the 11 players of the Chamber Concerto deserve particular praise for the lyrical virtuosity they bring to this highly demanding music. The recordings were made at the Nimbus’s own Wyastone Concert Hall, conveniently located for both the orchestra and the composer.
The “No. 1” might seem like an affectation for the title of the symphony presented here. But no, Williams is now hard at work on his Symphony No. 2, another English Symphony Orchestra commission (as here, with funds from the Steven R. Gerber Trust). The recording of that work is eagerly awaited. Watch this space.
This review appears in Fanfare issue 46:4.
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Guy Rickards – Gramophone Magazine
December 2022
A Williams Symphony No 1. Chamber Concerto, ‘Portraits of Ned Kelly’ English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods Nimbus Alliance (NI6432 • 70’)
The English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods’s ‘21st Century
Symphony Project’ goes from strength to strength: Philip Sawyers’s Third (10/17; my Critic’s Choice that year), David Matthews’s Ninth (7/19) and Matthew Taylor’s Fifth (5/21); Steve Elcock’s Eighth, next in the series, is in the can but will not be released until late 2023. This newly released fourth album features a symphony every bit as impressive as its series forebears.
Although Nimbus date Adrian Williams’s First Symphony to 2020 on the album cover, the composer reveals in his booklet note that, begun in 2018, it was substantively complete by the end of 2019, though revisions continued until shortly before the premiere in December 2021. At 48 minutes in length in this extremely well-prepared and riveting first recording, Williams’s symphony is a work of considerable expressive heft, opening out from the main motif, E flat-F-C. The two main themes of the first movement (Maestoso – Stridente) drive a tonal tussle between E flat and F through this movement and in different ways in the following three.
After completing the by turns gossamer and ‘rumbustious’ Scherzando, with its coruscating orchestration (but the whole work is superbly scored, for strings, brass and percussion), Williams had started the Energico – Dolente finale when he ‘saw the harrowing images of the wild fires in Australia, so much tragic loss of life, loss of habitat’. The Lento slow movement reflecting this disaster’s ‘emotional impact’ grew from this, containing two substantial static sections – the stillness of devastation. The finale concludes in hope for renewal, but at what cost?
Australian inspiration lies behind the coupling, Williams’s 1998 Chamber Concerto Portraits of Ned Kelly. This has a punchier, sharper edge to it – both harmonically and texturally – than the symphony and is more descriptive, inspired by the paintings of the infamous bushwhacker by Williams’s friend and former neighbour (in Wales), Sidney Nolan. The performances of both modern but attractive works are scintillating, in sound to match. Guy Rickards
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Textura Magazine (Canada)
https://www.textura.org/archives/w/williams_symphonyno1.htm
Adrian Williams: Symphony No. 1 / Chamber Concerto: Portraits of Ned Kelly
Nimbus Records
The thought of writing a first symphony must be incredibly daunting. How, one wonders, does a composer write a new one when canonic symphonies by Mahler, Sibelius, Beethoven, Bruckner, and others cast such intimidating shadows? Easing the process along for Adrian Williams (b. 1956) was a request from conductor Kenneth Woods, who asked the composer in 2018 to create a work for the English Symphony Orchestra’s 21st Century Symphony Project. Woods, the ESO’s Artistic Director, and the Worcester-based orchestra initiated the project in 2016 and have to date commissioned and issued recordings of works by Philip Sawyers, David Matthews, Matthew Taylor, and, of course, Williams, whose ESO-commissioned second symphony is in the works and scheduled to premiere in 2023.
Staring down a blank canvas is easier when an external spur arises to push the project along, and of course it also helps when the symphony template is so well-established: even before a note’s written, the composer knows the finished piece will likely include a scherzo, adagio, and an allegro or two. In Williams’ case, his Symphony No. 1 (2020) underwent numerous tweaks until its recording took place in December 2021 at Wyastone Concert Hall in Monmouth. It’s joined on this exemplary recording by Chamber Concerto: Portraits of Ned Kelly (1998), recorded at the same location but eight months earlier. Adding to the release’s appeal, both are world premiere recordings.
Consistent with symphony form, Williams’ first frames a scherzo and slow movement with lengthy statements, the opener labeled “Maestoso – Stridente” and the closer “Energico – Dolente.” After anguished, Mahler-like strings introduce the first movement with a powerful theme, the remaining orchestral forces appear to flesh out the material and establish its dramatic, searching character. Brooding and agitated episodes intertwine, the music swelling and decompressing in turn and the ESO breathing forceful life into the music. Williams’ command of tone painting and mood building is evident throughout, as is his sensitivity to timbre. The breezy rambunctiousness of the “Scherzando” isn’t unwelcome after the drama of the opening part, though, like it, the second engages the senses with resplendent orchestral colour. Williams fashioned the third movement as an extended lament upon witnessing the devastating impact of wildfires on Australian life and habitat. The emotional response was so strong that the mournful music, which includes two extended still sections alluding to the dead forests after the fires, “wrote itself,” in his words. Churning rhythms announce the onset of the energized concluding movement, an eighteen-minute colossus that advances methodically through a variety of contrasting sections before its tumultuous conclusion. The opening movement’s string theme resurfaces during a contemplative passage, with flute and percussion amplifying the Impressionistic quality of the music. Thereafter it grows progressively more anxious, turbulent, and even explosive until the destination’s reached.
In contrast to the largely non-programmatic character of the symphony, Chamber Concerto: Portraits of Ned Kelly draws for inspiration from two things, the first, stories about the notorious outlaw who raged across Australia in the years prior to his arrest and execution in 1880, and, secondly, Williams’ friend and Welsh Borders region neighbour, Australian painter Sidney Nolan, who created a series of Kelly-related paintings that incited a musical response from Williams. While the work isn’t by-the-numbers programmatic, its spirited passages do evoke the wildness of Kelly’s life and his capture, trial, and execution (apparently, homemade body armour enabled him to be the only member of his gang to survive a final showdown with the police). A single-movement work lasting twenty-two minutes, the concerto is an adventure story told in orchestral form, with Woods’ citing of Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel as a comparative work an astute choice when both are so action-packed, wide-ranging, and imaginative. While the symphony and chamber concerto are clearly different works, both are gripping and receive sterling realizations from Woods and the ESO—no easy feat when Williams’ writing poses extraordinary challenges to the musician. That’s all the more reason, then, to imagine how delighted the composer must be with the project’s outcome.
November 2022
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ADRIAN WILLIAMS Symphony No. 1. Chamber Concerto, “Portraits of Ned Kelly” • Kenneth Woods, cond; English SO • NIMBUS 6432 (69:31)
The 21st Century Symphony Project, initiated by Kenneth Woods and the orchestra of which he is music director, the English Symphony Orchestra, was designed to commission, perform, and record nine new symphonies by living British composers. COVID-19 put a kink in the timeline, but the project is continuing with the financial help of the Steven R. Gerber Trust in the USA. Before we get into a “why are we funding them?” argument, it must be said that the four symphonies that have appeared on disc since this scheme got underway in 2016 are all attractive, musically substantial works that deserve a place in the repertoire and a long life. They are: Symphony No. 3 by Philip Sawyers; Symphony No. 9 by David Matthews; Symphony No. 5 by Matthew Taylor, and Symphony No. 1 by Adrian Williams. These four composers are hardly new to the game: they were born between 1943 and 1964, and share a style that incorporates Modernist and Postmodern elements into a traditional symphonic mold. Though not the youngest, Adrian Williams (b. 1956) is the most impressive in a way, because this remarkable 50-minute symphony is his first.
Williams began as a piano prodigy but soon gravitated to composition, studying with Lennox Berkeley and Bernard Stevens. Among his catalog are several works for the cellist Raphael Wallfisch, including a concerto. His First Symphony, written in 2020, is in four movements. The vigorous first movement contains moments of stasis where an almost spectral concentration on color emerges, but at the same time Williams develops two initial themes in a symphonic manner. A short, bright scherzo follows. The final movements contain the real meat of the work. The third, marked Lento, unfolds at a slow but steady pace. Texturally spare, it is held together by strings (particularly basses), while shards of color such as long-held woodwind chords or an occasional solo trumpet line come and go. Williams uses tonal harmony but undercuts it with subtle dissonance, producing an overall feeling of unease. In his note, the composer reveals that he was inspired by images of the devastation wrought by terrible, wide-ranging bushfires in eastern Australia in 2019, and this music undoubtedly conjures up a sad, ravaged landscape. It need not necessarily be Australian, of course: the U.S. West Coast is well acquainted with such scenes. The final movement, lasting 18 minutes, is almost a self-contained short symphony in itself. Beginning with a passage marked Energico, it soon settles into a hybrid reminiscence of the first and third movements, very gradually building towards a magnificent conclusion. How satisfying that the symphonic form, so often pronounced dead, continues to thrive into the new century, thanks almost entirely to English, Scandinavian, and American composers.
Williams’s companion piece is a symphonic scherzo depicting another Australian subject: the exploits and untimely end of the 19th-century bushranger Ned Kelly. In his home on the Welsh border, Williams became friendly with the Australian painter Sidney Nolan (1917–1992), whose most recognizable work is an enormous series of paintings depicting Kelly in his home-made armor. Williams’s piece captures the rumbunctious, anti-authoritarian outlaw in a manner akin to Till Eulenspiegel, only more aggressive and unconstrained. At times I was put in mind of an astringent Modernist update of the monkey music in Koechlin’s Les bandar-log. While the piece lacks the lyrical profile of much of the First Symphony, it is great fun. Both works are expertly orchestrated and are played here with brilliance and a commitment that underlines the significance of Woods’s 21st Century Symphony Project. Recording quality is first-rate, so if you are interested in contemporary orchestral music that is not too weird and has a tangible symphonic backbone, you cannot go wrong with this disc. Phillip Scott