Another great Proms concert, recorded a week ago and this time pairing the BBC Concert Orchestra with organist James McVinnie. A well-selected programme of atmospheric modern orchestral music is punctuated by a couple of fantastic solo organ pieces, then both come together in the finale.
Einojuhani Rautavaara's chilly soundscape Cantus Arcticus is up first, the music woven around taped birdsong captured by Rautavaara in northern Finland in the early 70s. A brief piece by Judith Weir is next: she describes Still, Glowing as "an attempt at ambient music". The first feature for James McVinnie is Philip Glass' Mad Rush, in its original organ version - recording by Glass here, or on piano here. The orchestra return with Arvo Pärt's Festina Lente.
No interval in this performance, so the orchestra continue on with two pieces from the late Jóhann Jóhannsson's Orphée album, reproducing their lovely melancholy in fine style. In between them is another solo organ spotlight, this time one of Messiaen's Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité. American composer Missy Mazzoli's Holy Roller is next, taking fragments of Tallis to create "a monument to a non-existent religion", then McVinnie joins the orchestra for Canadian Samy Moussa's incredible A Globe Itself Infolding to give a memorable conclusion to the programme.
pw: sgtg
Arvo Pärt at SGTG: Spiegel Im Spiegel, etc
Jóhann Jóhannsson at SGTG: Fordlandia / Orphée
and lots of Philip Glass.
