Arnold Griller: Orchestral Music, Vol. 1 – Works for Chamber Orchestra

Album review

The composer Arnold Griller (b. 1937) grew up in London before moving to California, surrounded in both places by some of the world’s best-known musicians. In spite of this propitious beginning to his career, his considerable output remains largely unknown. This first volume of orchestral pieces presents three of his major works – music that turns out to be highly individual, often moving unexpectedly between moods of excitement and drive, wry humour and deep emotion. His influences and interests range widely, from Scarlatti to such twentieth-century masters as Milhaud (his main teacher) and Stravinsky, and on to composers of today. Melodic lyricism, rhythmic intensity, textural clarity and contrapuntal complexity combine with a generosity of musical ideas to produce a unique style and voice. The three works featured on this album, Ensemble Seventeen, Distant Villages and the Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, can all somehow be associated with the idea of ‘concerto’. With Ensemble Seventeen, composed in 2001, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra comes to mind, not for any stylistic similarities, but because of the virtuosic use of different instrumental combinations. The Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra (2014) bears cryptic headings of ‘Dawn’, ‘Spring’ and ‘Into the Night’, but one can only imagine what this hint of a ‘programme’ might mean – some hidden personal and philosophical ideas? The score of Distant Villages, a ‘Concerto for Violas, Cellos, Keyboard Instruments and Pitched Percussion’ (in this case: xylophone, marimba, celesta, glockenspiel), develops the rich sound of four violas and four cellos, from which Griller seems to be extracting every possible combination of colour and articulation in the extended opening section for strings alone, followed by highly original interventions from the other soloists. Arnold Griller is a highly remarkable yet very, very discreet composer – he does not seem to have his own website nor even a page on any online encyclopaedia – who deserves to be discovered asap; the second volume is eagerly awaited! © SM/Qobuz