Four scores by Tom Coult, a Londoner born in 1988, make for good listening, all performed by the BBC Philharmonic. Three Pieces that Disappear suggests Coult as a composer as occupied with timbre and texture as he is with invention, high on suggestion and atmosphere, too, quirky with it as a number of baroque-isms enter our consciousness, and also our remembrance, the latter state of mind cueing what might be heard as LP surface noise, Handel learned at 33 1/3 rpm. Martyn Brabbins conducts. Pleasure Garden, a twenty-five-minute violin concerto for Daniel Pioro, sets soloist expression against active orchestra for three intense incident-packed movements, whimsical at times. Elena Schwarz conducts. The other works are for soprano, Anna Dennis on this occasion, both conducted by Andrew Gourlay. Beautiful Caged Thing is dramatically involving, vocally sympathetic, and musically compelling; whereas After Lassus, six movements, running more or less continuously, ravishes the senses as the sixteenth-century meets the twenty-first, including bluesy-trombone-led (lower-case c) cabaret (fourth setting). In the final number, aided by the enchanting use of a celesta, I thought of Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances. Intriguing though each of these opuses are, it may be that Coult is compositionally strongest when words are involved. This debut album, with top-notch renditions and sound (Stephen Rinker), is on NMC D261.
NMC releases Tom Coult – Pieces that Disappear, and other works – BBC Philharmonic.
