MacMillan: Since it was the day of preparation …
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JAMES MACMILLAN
MacMillan: Since it was the day of preparation …
Brindley Sherratt (solo bass), Synergy Vocals, Hebrides Ensemble
[ Delphian / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 24 June 2016
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The first disc in a new recording partnership between Hebrides Ensemble and Delphian Records presents Sir James MacMillan's extraordinary setting - by turns intimate and dramatic - of the Resurrection story as told in St John's Gospel. As at the work's premiere at the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival, the Ensemble and its director William Conway (the work's dedicatee) are joined by bass Brindley Sherratt in the role of Christ, and by a quartet of
singers from Synergy Vocals. A significant landmark in MacMillan's career, Since it was the day of Preparation … now inaugurates a series of recordings set to document Hebrides Ensemble's outstanding contribution to Scottish cultural life.
"Sherratt is very fine as Christ. The music he has to sing is dignified and eloquent and Sherratt puts it across with great conviction...No less impressive are the four members of Synergy Vocals, whether singing as a consort or individually. All four voices are clear, both in terms of tone and diction; they are ideally suited to the music." MusicWeb International, June 2016
"Since it was the day of preparation is on the face of it a chamber piece, with just ten performers needed. Yet in an extraordinarily perceptive and affecting manner it broaches enduring universal issues and, in this wonderfully committed recording, already feels like a modern masterpiece." BBC Music Magazine, July 2016 *****
"Macmillan's work is a musically entertaining, dramatically satisfying piece of theatre, not a dull slab of dutiful contemplation... this is as authoritative a reading as we're ever likely to hear." The Arts Desk, July 2016
"Here we have the latest in a stream of major works which express [MacMillan's] deeply held Catholicism, and for my money it is by far and away the most effective...The Hebrides Ensemble provide eloquent testimony to the sustained impact of MacMillan's writing." Gramophone Editor's Choice August 2016
Tracks:
PART I
1. Introduction [3:08]
Elizabeth Kenny theorbo
2. The Pierced Christ [3:20]
3. Interlude [2:36]
William Conway cello
4. The Burial [3:04]
5. Interlude (quintet) [4:18]
PART II
6. The Empty Tomb [2:43]
7. Interlude [4:07]
Yann Ghiro clarinet
8. The Appearance to Mary of Magdala [7:07]
9. Interlude [3:11]
Gabriella Dall'Olio harp
10. The Appearances to the Disciples [7:44]
11. Interlude (quintet) [4:08]
PART III
12. The Appearance on the Shore of Tiberias [17:12]
13. Interlude [4:09]
Stephen Stirling horn
14. Conclusion (SATBar) & Postlude (quintet) [5:19]
Total playing time [72:16]
