Special offer. John McCabe: Silver Nocturnes
John McCabe (piano), Roderick Williams (baritone), David Pyatt (horn)
Sacconi Quartet
Awards:
-
The Times Records of the Year, 2017
Silver Nocturnes blurs the boundary between string quartet and quintet…Williams has the necessary strength and intensity for the music’s bleak dramaticism. The Horn Quintet (2010-11) confirms...
Special offer. John McCabe: Silver Nocturnes
John McCabe (piano), Roderick Williams (baritone), David Pyatt (horn)
Sacconi Quartet
Purchase product
Awards:
-
The Times Records of the Year, 2017
Silver Nocturnes blurs the boundary between string quartet and quintet…Williams has the necessary strength and intensity for the music’s bleak dramaticism. The Horn Quintet (2010-11) confirms...
About
John McCabe (1939-2015) was a prolific composer and pianist, bequeathing in all an impressive seven symphonies and seven string quartets, as well as numerous concertos and several major ballets. McCabe was appointed CBE by the Queen in 1985 for his services to British music.
Three highly expressive chamber works make up this album. The piano quintet The Woman By the Sea draws inspiration from a the Kenji Mizoguchi film Sansho Dayu (1954). It was recorded in 2009 and features John McCabe on piano, with the Sacconi Quartet. Silver Nocturnes for baritone and string quartet, sets poetry by three of the so-called ‘Silver Poets’ of the sixteenth century: Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey), Sir Edward Dyer, and Sir Philip Sidney. There is a mournful, almost austere tone established through the Britten-esque vocals, here sung by Roderick Williams.
McCabe described the french horn as "one of the most evocative and beautiful of all instruments". His Horn Quintet was written especially for the artists on this recording: David Pyatt and the Sacconi Quartet.
Contents and tracklist
- Roderick Williams (baritone)
- Sacconi Quartet
- Recorded: 17 March 2017
- Recording Venue: All Saints Church, East Finchley, London, UK
- David Pyatt (horn)
- Sacconi Quartet
- Recorded: 13 April 2016
- Recording Venue: All Saints Church, East Finchley, London, UK
- The Australian Piano Trio
Spotlight on this release
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Awards and reviews
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The Times Records of the Year2017
January 2018
Silver Nocturnes blurs the boundary between string quartet and quintet…Williams has the necessary strength and intensity for the music’s bleak dramaticism. The Horn Quintet (2010-11) confirms McCabe’s as part of the ‘English’ school, with influences from Tippett and Vaughan Williams clearly audible. The horn (David Pyatt) calls, beguiles and intrigues.
December 2017
The Sixth String Quartet, Silver Nocturnes (2011), is an austerely radiant fusion of quartet and song-cycle, beautifully performed here with the baritone Roderick Williams…Like the Quartet, the Horn Quintet is a remarkably subtle composition and familiarity only deepens respect for the composer’s craft…I cannot recommend this strongly enough.
12th November 2017
[McCabe] is the pianist in the first of these three later works, The Woman by the Sea, inspired by a Mizoguchi film. The title work is an arresting setting of 16th-century “silver” poets, framed by Shakespeare. Last comes the Shakespearean, tripartite, invigorating Horn Quintet, oddly opening with the same phrase that began Silver Nocturnes.
