Special offer. Rob Keeley: Orchestral Music
Sarah Desbruslais (flute), James Turnbull (oboe), Michael Sluman (oboe), Patrick Flanaghan (cor anglais), Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra, Liepaja Symphony Orchestra, Paul Mann
Paul Mann’s secure conducting and the excellent playing of the two orchestras helps make this disc an all-around superb affair.
Special offer. Rob Keeley: Orchestral Music
Sarah Desbruslais (flute), James Turnbull (oboe), Michael Sluman (oboe), Patrick Flanaghan (cor anglais), Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra, Liepaja Symphony Orchestra, Paul Mann
Purchase product
Paul Mann’s secure conducting and the excellent playing of the two orchestras helps make this disc an all-around superb affair.
About
The music of Rob Keeley – born in south Wales in 1960 but immersed in London musical life since boyhood – embraces a wide range of influences. Stravinsky’s angular melodies and Tippett’s buoyant rhythms can be heard in the spiky but bucolic Second Symphony. Keeley readily confesses to an allegiance to Gallic Neo-Classicism in his Flute Concerto and, more surprisingly, reveals a taste for Telemann as the inspiration behind his Triple Concerto, with the ‘Enigma’ Variations of ‘my beloved Elgar’ acting as a model for Keeley’s own recent set of orchestral variations. Among the factors unifying these eclectic stimuli into an individual musical language are a concern for textural clarity and lightness of touch, a fondness for dance and a hint of good humour.
Awards and reviews
November 2020
Paul Mann’s secure conducting and the excellent playing of the two orchestras helps make this disc an all-around superb affair.
July 2020
Keeley’s sound-world reflects a wide range of composers including Elliot Carter, Michael Tippett, Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie, Francis Poulenc, jazz and even nods (as noted above) to Edward Elgar, Hector Berlioz, and Ludwig van Beethoven. It is refreshing to hear music that balances modernity with tradition, is always true to itself and thoroughly entertaining.
classicalsource.com July 2020
Keeley’s concise, four-movement, Second Symphony (1996) might be heard as fusing Stravinsky’s Agon and another Second Symphony, Michael Tippett’s. The first two movements bustle with activity yet neither is shy of lyricism...Keeley’s music is a wonderful discovery, especially the Symphony and the Variations. He is very well served by the dedicated performers.
