Anna Clyne's The Years is a subtle meditation on the mystery of time set to words by Stephanie Fleischmann, composed during the pandemic. The work balances a mood of calm isolation with episodic angsty intrusions to convey quiet hopefulness, reaching a peaceful, triumphant conclusion. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi offered a relaxed, sensitive reading with warm string tones and clear vocal lines from the Danish National Concert Choir. The musical language, faintly reminiscent of Tippett or Barber, uses simple melodies that bloom into tangy harmonic clusters, oscillating voices, and occasional harsh orchestral interjections. Bent Srensen's Evening Land presented a less convincing contrast between Danish pastoral memory and Manhattan restlessness, while the Beethoven performance showcased a powerful choir and responsive orchestra but sometimes suffered from tempos too hectic for the hall's resonance.
What do you pair with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony? You might do worse than Anna Clyne's The Years, a subtle meditation on the mystery of time set to words by Stephanie Fleischmann. Composed during the pandemic, its approachable mood of calm isolation survives a series of angsty intrusions to convey a message of quiet hopefulness. Like the Beethoven, it reaches a triumphant conclusion, though in Clyne's case the victory is an eminently peaceful one.
The Danish National Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Fabio Luisi gave it a relaxed and sensitive reading, warm string tones cocooning vocal lines that rose and fell, rendered with impressive clarity by the Danish National Concert Choir. The musical language, faintly reminiscent of Tippett or Barber, was built on simple melodies that blossomed into tangy harmonic clusters. Oscillating voices, stalked by harsh orchestral interjections like wailing sirens, gave way to an expansive sunset glimpsed through a haze of strings and a tranquil, timeless conclusion.
Collection
[
|
...
]