The prolific and erudite Twitter commentator, Adam Philp, AKA “The Symphonist“, has dedicated an extensive thread to celebrating the music of Philip Sawyers. He begins by naming the new recording of Sawyers’ Fourth Symphony and Hommage to Kandinsky with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales his “Record of the Week” and goes on to explore the full range of Sawyers’s work currently on recording.
2/ The symphony isn't just alive and kicking in the 21st century: with composers like Sawyers to write music of such stature, and performers like these to champion their work, the genre is thriving. If you don't believe me, you'd better listen to this.https://t.co/UfItgaH7yc
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 7, 2020
4/ Whet your appetite by wrapping your ears around this swaggering concert overture from 2006. Sawyers channels influences from many great composers into music that surges with excitement. This should blow some life into the start of your Tuesday. https://t.co/5xQLISCLmp
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 9, 2020
6/ The music that inspired the young Sawyers was distinctly unfashionable at a time when, as he puts it: "only those who followed Stockhausen and Boulez seemed to get a look in."
"Tonality is like gravity – you ignore it at your peril” – Paul Hindemithhttps://t.co/mz9qUAt8ev
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 9, 2020
8/ Sawyers played violin in the @RoyalOperaHouse orchestra for 24 years from 1973. Another wonderfully unfashionable composer began as an orchestral musician. Like Malcolm Arnold, life in the trenches tuned Sawyers' ear to write superbly for orchestra. https://t.co/LCtTgevn5V
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 9, 2020
10/ He took to the genre like a duck to water. You owe it to yourself hear Sawyers 1 if you love Hindemith's Mathis der Maler or Walton 1. You'll find all 4 symphonies and much more, roughly in chronological order, on my @NimbusRecords @Spotify playlist.https://t.co/KVPRAwyXew
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 9, 2020
12/ Success abroad gained Sawyers a new symphonic commission in his homeland. One stipulation: use the forces required for Beethoven 7, to be played at the same @mozartplayers concert. The 2nd delivered Beethovenian dynamism, drive and drama as well.https://t.co/VJHGTMig7o
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 10, 2020
14/ "Having been deeply impressed with Sawyers’s First Symphony, I ought not to have been surprised by the sheer fearlessness and directness of expression of the Second" – @kennethwoods
"Performed here with thrilling conviction and formidable assurance" – @GramophoneMag pic.twitter.com/Gv04Mm9kxT
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 10, 2020
16/ Kenneth Woods was conducting Kent County Youth Orchestra when he met Sawyers, their 2nd-violin coach, in 2005. When Woods heard his music "I realised I was dealing with a genius". Three years later, Woods conducted his "Hommage to Berlioz" @KentMusic.https://t.co/d7g0JKl7r2
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 11, 2020
18/ Meanwhile @GRSymphony commissioned another hommage. 'Hommage to Kandinsky' (2014) is one of the works on my #RecordOfTheWeek.
"Living with an artist … I began to appreciate the 'musicality' in painting with its tones, lines, forms and textures 'singing' from the canvas." pic.twitter.com/fq6uC1RMgU
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 11, 2020
20/ Appropriately for a tribute to a synaesthetic Russian artist, that palette is full of orchestral colours that brought great Russian music, from Rimsky-Korsakov to Shostakovich, vividly to my mind. Its final minutes reminded me of this. https://t.co/muqiD8ZunO
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 11, 2020
22/ #NowListening The Violin Concerto, composed while Composer-in-Association at @EnglishSymphon, has clear English roots. Its unquiet pastoral lyricism recalls, among others, his teacher Edmund Rubbra.
"Sawyers’s thrilling orchestral music truly captivates" – @MusicMagazine pic.twitter.com/n7o6Y0gx1u
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 12, 2020
24/ @EnglishSymphon consistently promotes new and unknown British music, so @kennethwoods was able to celebrate his appointment as principal conductor in 2013 by commissioning a new British symphony.
"This big moment for both me and the orchestra begged for a bold statement." pic.twitter.com/HHGbouT3mR
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 12, 2020
26/ An upwards octave leap is a characteristic figure, appearing in several other Sawyers works including the Violin Concerto. In the 3rd Symphony's Adagio, it reveals itself as a direct reference to arguably the greatest symphonic adagio of all. https://t.co/NUccoRFBYL
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 12, 2020
28/ Sawyers 3 provided the most auspicious inauguration possible for another brainchild of the indefatigable @kennethwoods: the #21stCenturySymphony project. Its mission? to commission a cycle of nine new symphonies. Talk about ambitious. https://t.co/MxXADbEUDj
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 13, 2020
30/ The third symphony in the cycle was premiered last year. I hope #COVID19 doesn't delay its appearance on record for too long; if the first two minutes are anything to go by, Matthew Taylor's 5th will be a worthy successor. https://t.co/VdaqZOMb0D
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 13, 2020
32/ Immediately after the first note on the trombones, strings gnaw obsessively at a four-note motive, F-E-G flat-F. Another turbulent 4th symphony by another great English symphonist opens in very similar fashion with a very similar figure. Coincidence?https://t.co/Ij8MbJbyqJ
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 13, 2020
34/ "My 4th symphony is in three movements. Why? … by the time the third movement was complete, there was nothing more to say"
While others have composed three-movement symphonies by design, Sawyers follows the trajectory of a more accidental model. https://t.co/CEt5kxvVf7
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 13, 2020
36/ The finale begins as a funeral march, recalling Mahler's octave-leap and the timpani rhythm from the Eroica's marcia funebre. A serene string melody near the end incredibly encompasses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale on its way to an ecstatic D-major conclusion. pic.twitter.com/5HJSjY9R1o
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 13, 2020
38/ “I've been influenced in some way by all the music I've ever heard and played"
Sawyers may be the living composer you've been longing for if Hindemith, Walton, Bartók, Mahler, Schoenberg, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz or Shostakovich speak to you. pic.twitter.com/ePE3JZBOGe
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 14, 2020
40/ "It’s certainly heartening to be in a time when many styles are now ‘admissible’" – Philip Sawyers
Sawyers absorbs, channels and melds his many influences into a compelling individual voice.
Philip has a way of making these musical inheritances his own." – @kennethwoods
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 14, 2020
41/ "I have been very cheered by many people saying ‘it sounds like you’. To have your own voice and be truly authentic and communicate with your musicians and your audience is what I strive for." – Philip Sawyers
Try my #RecordOfTheWeek. I dare you.https://t.co/VAkxfCmmWp
— The Symphonist (@deeplyclassical) June 14, 2020
*applause*
Great and illuminating thread from Adam, and fantastic work from you Ken in performing this score.
And of course – thanks to Philip Sawyers himself for creating another masterpiece. I do so hope greater recognition – and more – performances – come his way, because goodness knows his music deserves to be heard.