Anna Clyne: DANCE - Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto

Album review

Anna Clyne's cello concerto DANCE was written for cellist Inbal Segev, who plays and fully inhabits it here, with the London Philharmonic under Marin Alsop. It's an extraordinary work that is well worth your time and, with this fine engineering, your money. Ready stylistic comparisons and descriptions do not spring easily to mind, which is all to the good. Clyne's idiom might superficially be called neo-Romantic, and the work's passionate idiom makes it a good pairing with the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, that closes out the album (it's also notable that the two works were composed exactly 100 years apart). Yet there is really nothing "neo" about Clyne's work: its language is fresh. There are few melodies, and those that there are, serve the purpose of evoking folk traditions rather than serving as building blocks for the structure. Instead, Clyne sometimes uses energetic cello configurations that sound like Steve Reich's "gradual processes," although she is no minimalist, either: she's far too emotionally intense for that. The 17th century Ruggieri cello Segev plays is part of the fervent sound too. The title DANCE comes from a five-line poem by Rumi, of which the first word of each line is "dance"; the five movement titles come from the rest of each line. Clyne's style is something that must be experienced to be understood, but the fact that it fully stands up to the Elgar concerto, played well, should tell prospective listeners something.

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