A Place Between Reviews

Reviews to Date
Gramophone describes A Place Between as a beautifully understated recording
LCMS’ cd A Place Between review in Gramophone Magazine Oct.09.

The godfathers of spiritual minimalism in a beautifully understated recording.
It’s difficult not to become increasingly sceptical about the way record companies exploit the commercial success of so-called “spiritual minimalist” composers such as Arvo Pärt, Górecki and Tavener, despite the fact that their music is fundamentally anti-materialistic. Many have also been cynical about the term “spiritual minimalism”-not least the composers themselves-as a catch all branding gimmick, but A Place Between does much to reinforce the view that in fact a common bond unites them.
Don’t expect to hear unbridled virtuousity or showmanship here; lento is about as dynamic as it gets, at least on the surface level. However, there are moments of understated beauty, notably in Valentin Silvestrov’s Lullaby for violin and piano. Written to commemorate the centenary of Tchaikovsky’s death, a series of hauntin melodic variations are woven in the violin around a descending, chaconne-like chord progression, with the piano progressively reinforcing each melodic statement. Russian minimalist Alexander Knaifel also inhabits a similar musical universe, as heard here in O Heavenly King.
Silvestrov’s Lullaby is more immediately expressive than Part’s similarly conceived and better known Spiegel im Spiegel. His music is represented here in Hymn to a Great City for two pianos ( multitracked on this recording by the talented Michael McHale): a cleverly constructed ”mirror” of imperfect-perfect cadences (ie C major to G major and back again). If the majority of the disc’s music appears to be in suspended animation, Gorecki’s Good Night brings proceedings almost to a standstill, with the final movement “sounding out” in complete silence. Appropriate then that the dreamy In a Landscape by the patron saint of silence himself, John Cage, should round things off. Pwyll ap Sion.

Music Web International 2nd Review
The inaugural recording by the Louth Contemporary Music Society offers religious minimalism in a range of flavours. It’s essentially an ambient album, subdued chamber music recorded in the warm acoustic of a large church, but the choice of works and composers makes for a varied programme.
Alexander Knaifel and Valentin Silvestrov make the most interesting contributions. Both composers include a point of aural focus in each of their musical textures, creating a sense of inner purpose and balancing the prevailing sense of ambience. Knaifel’s O Heavenly King is scored for soprano and string quartet, but with an intermittent obbligato shared between piano and celesta giving a percussive foil to the otherwise sustained textures. Silvestrov creates a similar sense of inner contrast in his textures through the clear profile of his melodies, standing apart and leading the ear. In Ikon the melody derives (or so it seems) from Orthodox chant, and in 25.X.1893. P. I. Tchaikovsky No. 2 – Lullaby the melody is borrowed from Tchaikovsky.
John Tavener and Arvo Pärt are presented in a more strictly ambient mode. Tavener’s Ikon of Joy and Sorrow and Pärt’s Da Pacem Domine are both slow, quiet works for string quartet with homogenous religioso textures throughout. Hymn to a Great City is Arvo Pärt’s homage to New York. It is a piano duet work with a simple chordal theme underpinned by repeated A flats and decorated by the occasional arpeggio flourish at the top of the keyboard. Frustratingly monotonous but mercifully short.
Henryk Górecki could be considered a minimalist, even a religious minimalist, but not in the sense that unites Tavener, Pärt, Silvestrov and Knaifel. His Third Symphony has associated his name with the religious and ambient tendencies in Eastern European music, but the work presented here, Good Night, is in a more uncompromising vein. There are echoes of the Third Symphony, especially from the soprano in the third movement, but in general this is music based on a sterner aesthetic philosophy. It is a long work (around half an hour) and is based on rigorously applied principles of thematic and textural development, or at least metamorphosis. The textures remain subdued throughout, yet it is an intense listening experience, and the preceding works seem somewhat trivial by comparison.
The disc concludes with In a Landscape, a solo piano work written by John Cage in 1948. Music from a different time, then, and from a different continent. Nevertheless, it fits comfortably into this programme, and serves to demonstrate the immense significance John Cage and his music had for European music in the second half of the 20th century.
The performances are of a consistently high standard, and a special mention should be made of the ensemble’s guest star, the soprano Patricia Rozario, although her two short appearances are all too brief. Good recorded sound too, although the church acoustic is perhaps a little overly resonant, even for that ‘ambient’ sound. The halo around the solo piano in this environment is strikingly similar to that of many of the ECM recordings of works by some of these composers. The economic success and iconic status of those recordings would be a laudable goal for this and future recording projects from the contemporary music enthusiasts of Louth.

BBC Music Magazine Review September 2009
The inclusion of John Cage alongside a number of so-called holy minimalists seems surprising, but the ‘hook’ for this collection is the effect that profound religious and cultural encounters have had on the composers, and Cage was a pioneer in incorporating lessons from Eastern philosophies and artistic stances. His serene 1948 work In a Landscape is given a sensitive reading by Michael McHale. If you thought there was nothing more to Cage than conceptual gimmicks, then this may well make you think again.
The rest of the composers featured here are less controversial, but no less significant to the state of serious music at the turn of the millennium. All the pieces were composed (or, in the case of Pärt ’s hymn to New York, radically revised) within the last two decades. Almost all are receiving premiere recordings or premieres in these versions. In an age of anxiety and conflict, this music looks to higher levels of consciousness to provide reassurance. Regardless of whether you share such faith, there is no doubting the beauty of the music or the sincerity and conviction of these excellent performances.
Barry Witherden.
Performance ****
Recording ****

Classic FM Magazine gave the LCMS cd A Place Between an excellent 4* review in the September 2009 edition.
If you’re someone for whom contemporary music is a dissonant turn-off, then this could be the disc that converts you. The varied programme of short, often minimalist chamber music includes premiere recordings by Knaifel, Tavener, Pärt and Silvestrov, all inspired in some way by religious or cultural encounters. Inevitably then, the music is down-tempo, but it’s comtemplative rather than syrupy. It’s hard to single out favourites, but soprano Patricia Rozario is at her golden-hued best in Knaifel’s ‘O Heavenly King’, while Silvestrov’s string quartet, ‘Ikon’, is beautifully reminiscent of 16th-century viol music.

Musicweb International Review July 2009
Louth Contemporary Music Society have here added to the blooming renaissance in approachable music of our time. I say ‘our time’ even though the composers were variously born in the 1930s and 1940s. Tavener’s Ikon of Joy and Sorrow is in the meditative minimalist caste of Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel but for string quartet. The Callino Quartet give a concentrated version but their violins do sound – presumably deliberately – rather skeletal. Pärt’s splash-swirling Hymn to a Great City for solo piano is cleanly laid out and brought to a logical and rounded close. Knaifel’s unhurriedly soliloquising O heavenly king is for string quartet, soprano, piano and celesta. The singing recalls the solo line in Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs chimed around by celesta and piano and by the slow projection of lines from the quartet. Silvestrov’s Ikon for string quartet proceeds quietly in devout contemplative gait while the same composer’s Tchaikovsky Lullaby for violin and piano has that same dreamy and faintly melancholy air.
Pärt’s Da Pacem Domine is soused in the atmosphere of medieval mysteries.Goodnight by Gorecki, whose Symphony I mentioned earlier, wrote the three movement 27 minute piece in memoriam Michael Vyner. It is the most complex of the works here and across its three Lentos has a subdued iterative character. Prayer and meditation are the order of the day. Cage’s name like that of Stockhausen often sends people into meltdown, freefall or a rush to the shelters. His 1948 In a Landscape is a remarkably delicate conception. Its softly chiming piano solo runs to 10:18. The hushed slowness, toll and eddying carillon of this music is wonderfully restful. It would nicely balance Maxwell Davies’s Farewell to Stromness, another lovely approachable piece from a composer people at one time loved to fear.
The notes are perceptive and helpful.This is an enlightened project and its funders deserve praise as much as the musical and technical teams: Music Network/Arts Council Music and the Arts Offices of Drogheda, Louth and Dundalk.Rob Barnett

Sunday Business Post Sunday, June 14, 2009 Reviewed by Dick O’Riordan
Since its formation in 2006, the Louth Contemporary Music Society has carved a very effective and identifiable niche for itself in Irish music, and by its achievements in attracting world-class performers such as Arvo Pärt , Joanna McGregor and Terry Riley.The society’s first compilation of various works by composers past and present forms a spiritual landscape embracing the mystical and the meditative.Irish musicians, playing with compelling beauty, perform all of the works on this CD. The players include the Callino Quartet, violinist Ioana Petcu-Colan, pianist Michael McHale, flautist Vourneen Ryan and percussionist Stephen Kelly. There is also some exquisite singing of ethereal quality by soprano Patricia Rozario.
Although it is difficult to single out any particular items in this collection, Part’s Hymn to a Great City – an uplifting two-piano tribute to New York – knocked me back through the purity of sound achieved by the overlapping of two separate recording tracks by McHale.This young award-winning Belfast pianist has an intuitive feel for music, and can cross musical boundaries effortlessly. Petcu-Colan plays again with McHale in a world premiere recording of Valentin Silvestrov’s 25 X 1893, a harrowingly exquisite, lullaby like tribute tribute to Tchaikovsky.Other composers covered include Tavener, Knaifel, Górecki and Cage. A Place Between is an instantly appealing CD whose hidden beauties and depths are revealed through repeated listening.

French Review La Vie Magazine Richard Holding
Musique contemporaine (CD). Osons cette affirmation de luxe : voici un magnifique album de musique contemporaine qui risque fort de faire vibrer la corde sensible de ses auditeurs… Affirmation de luxe car avouons-le, la musique classique d’aujourd’hui est souvent déroutante pour un public en quête d’émotions nouvelles.
La recherche de la beauté, celle qui procure du plaisir au sens le plus direct et immédiat, n’est plus la préoccupation essentielle des compositeurs chez qui concept précède émotion. Cependant, certains créateurs d’abord attirés par l’avant-garde, se sont ensuite radicalement reconvertis à des procédés musicaux plus simples, plus parlants pour l’âme et le cœur.
C’est le cas de John Tavener, Arvo Pärt, Valentin Silvestrov, Henryk Gorecki, Alexander Knaifel et John Cage, réunis sur le présent enregistrement. Compositeurs nés dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, leurs œuvres de maturité ont en commun une profonde inspiration religieuse et spirituelle. Un thème qui sert de fil conducteur au programme de ce très beau disque conçu comme une invitation à la prière et à la contemplation. Couleurs cristallines, sonorités douces et paisibles caractérisent cette suite de pièces méditatives, parfois poignantes. Servies par d’excellents musiciens, elles offrent à l’auditeur une expérience musicale bouleversante, une évasion dans les profondeurs de cette « région intermédiaire » décrite par le mystique Thomas Merton (1915-68) et qui donne son titre à l’album (A place between) : « le cœur sage demeure dans l’espoir et la contradiction, dans la douleur et la joie … le cœur sage vit dans le Christ ».
Nul besoin d’être expert pour ressentir la force du langage épuré de ces grands noms d’aujourd’hui ; le mélomane est fasciné par l’idée de se savoir le témoin vivant d’une création contemporaine qui réponde avec immédiateté à ses besoins. Ils sont les Bach, Mozart et Schubert de notre temps.

Des Fitzgerald Artbeat Dublin City FM
LCMS’s first CD has just been released; entitled ‘A Place Between’, it includes world première recordings of works by John Tavener, Arvo Pärt, and Valentin Silvestrov. It’s a stunning achievement both in terms of the music selected but also the beautiful acoustic achieved by the recording team in St. Peter’s Church of Ireland, Drogheda. The recording is garnering praise from many quarters. Artbeat

John Kelly, JK Ensemble RTÉ Lyric fm
Hats off the louth cms for producing such a beautiful thing. An excellent primer for anybody looking for an entrance to contemporary music.

From an Overgrown Path
My own words about the Louth Contemporary Music Society’s new CD,A Place Between, will be brief. That opening quote from Martin Adams’ excellent booklet essay shows that this CD is put together by people who know, and care, about contemporary music. If you are a regular reader you will know the type of music that features regularly on this blog; the track listing above shows you are going to find it on A Place Between. The quality of the music is, needless to say, outstanding. It is matched in quality by the performances, by the packaging (from which all my graphics are taken), and by the sound captured in St. Peters Church of Ireland, Drogheda. The folks at Louth Contemporary Music have their priorities sorted. No celebrities talking the music up, but instead well deserved photos and credits for producer Eamonn Quinn and sound engineer Peer Espen. If I were CEO of a major corporate record label I would send a copy of A Place Between to every member of my classical division. And I would demand an explanation as to why an impecunious independent label can produce something this important, while my own staff continue schmoozing teenage opera stars at industry award events. An Overgrown Path”