Playing With Henry 2

Album review

Playing with Henry, 2, is the creation apparently of one I.D. Mellish. The album consists of three electronic compositions, each in three or four sections, and all based on In Nomines or fantasias by Henry Purcell, hence the name. Actually, you have to take the composer's word on that; rare would be the ear that could identify the source material from what's heard on the album. The music would be a theorist's dream; Purcell's music seems to be boiled down to its basic pitch content, using not only pure aesthetic criteria but also devices based on such abstract principles as prime numbers. The sound in the first two works is made to resemble a group of strings, but the palette of the third piece, mysteriously entitled Cold Gods ("The monk thing") is broader; Mellish says it is realized for an "unreal orchestra." The quasi-scientific aspect of the music will probably detract from the experience for general listeners; a chemical diagram of sugar doesn't help you appreciate why a certain passage is supposed to be sweet, and furthermore doesn't have much to do with Purcell. But the music is attractive in a minimalist sort of way, moving through tonal fields where the pitches of the source material stack up in dissonances and then spread out into slow-moving consonant waves. A bit more explanatory material, whether technical or in a more poetic vein, might have helped to clarify what's really going on here.

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