Letting the Light In
Works by Sorcha Pringle, Leon Clowes, Elinor Rowlands et al
Siwan Rhys (piano)
NMCNMCD283 51:17mins
In their introduction to this varied collection, Drake Music Scotland and Music
Centre Wales set out the position of disabled people in classical music: though the genre's arguably most famous composer - Beethoven -was deaf, discussions around disability are generally avoided. This album faces that prejudice head on by focussing specifically on UK-based disabled composers. Naturally, selecting musicians based on one aspect of their identity leads to a diversity of styles. A unifying force comes in the form of the piano, played here by Siwan Rhys.
Whether it's the sparse unison melodies in Elinor Rowlands's Secrets in the Centrefold- a song that mixes spoken words with singing about a town in Norway wiped out by an earthquake - or the titular, bell-like letting the light in by Sarah
Lianne Lewis, Rhys demonstrates nimble adaptivity. This can be heard in the second movement of leon clowes's Anni, Gini,]oni, where the composer has recorded Rhys improvising around a simple chord, then asked her to respond to a manipulation of that recording. The result is strangely meditative.
Topics covered here include space - Sonia Allori's Random eddies (in the space time continuum) and scoundrel hags (Galwady Mynyddby Jo-anne Cox), with just one piece directly linked to disability. Diminished Credibility considers composer Sorcha Pringle's first -hand experience of assistive technology and society's response to it. The lyrics are spoken by an early iteration of a screen reader; we hear Pringle's own, beautifully structured phrases, in flat, emotionless tone. There's an unsettling contrast between the machine voice and the chordal piano part - as Rhys finishes her solo, the faceless voice announces 'speech off.
Claire jackson
PERFORMANCE ***
RECORDING ****
BBC Music Magazine, November 2024
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