Track Listing

1. Flourish with Fireworks, for orchestra, Op. 22
2. The Way to Castle Yonder, Pot-pourri for orchestra after the opera Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Op 21a: 1. The Journey to the Big White Ho
3. The Way to Castle Yonder, Pot-pourri for orchestra after the opera Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Op 21a: 2. Kleine Trauermusik
4. The Way to Castle Yonder, Pot-pourri for orchestra after the opera Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Op 21a: 3. The Ride to Castle Yonder
5. Organa (2), for large ensemble, Op 27: 1. Notre Dame des Jouets
6. Organa (2), for large ensemble, Op 27: 2. Organum to honour the 20th anniversary of the Schönberg Ensemble
7. Concerto for horn & orchestra, Op 28: Intrada
8. Concerto for horn & orchestra, Op 28: Fantastico
9. Concerto for horn & orchestra, Op 28: Cadenza
10. Concerto for horn & orchestra, Op 28: Envoi
11. Music for a Puppet Court for 2 chamber orchestras, Op. 11: 1. Puzzle I. "Iste tenor ascendit"
12. Music for a Puppet Court for 2 chamber orchestras, Op. 11: 2. Toyshop music after "tris"
13. Music for a Puppet Court for 2 chamber orchestras, Op. 11: 3. Antiphon (after "iste tenor ascendit...")
14. Music for a Puppet Court for 2 chamber orchestras, Op. 11: 4. Puzzle II: "tris"
15. Whitman Settings, for soprano & orchestra, Op. 25a: 1. When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
16. Whitman Settings, for soprano & orchestra, Op. 25a: 2. A Noiseless Patient Spider
17. Whitman Settings, for soprano & orchestra, Op. 25a: 3. The Dalliance of the Eagles
18. Whitman Settings, for soprano & orchestra, Op. 25a: 4. The Voice of the Rain
19. '...upon one note,' fantazia after Purcell, for clarinet, piano & string trio

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #443178 in Music
• Released on: 2003-11-11
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

An excellent showcase for Knussen the composer
Oliver Knussen has become fairly well known as a conductor in the last ten years, so it's good that his new violin concerto has brought attention back to his talents as a composer. DG has now reissued this previously out-of-print recording of works mainly from the early 1990s, and an excellent collection it is.

Knussen's musical style is a little hard to pin down--if his penchant for brevity and rigorous counterpoint remind me of Webern, his outstanding orchestration evokes Ravel and his basically tonal harmonic and melodic language reminds me of the Stravinsky of Petrushka and The Firebird.

It is early Stravinsky that provides the model for the disc-opener, Flourish with Fireworks, a splendidly joyous postmodern takeoff on Stravinsky's early orchestral piece Fireworks. The Way to Castle Yonder is effectively a suite from his Maurice Sendak-based opera Higglety Pigglety Pop! The first movement is lighthearted and delicate, the second a brief elegy and the finale a raucous romp.

The two organa take early music techniques and apply them to a modern orchestra--the simpler, first piece sounds curiously 'out of time', the second more contemporary.

Without doubt the finest work on the disc is the Horn Concerto--with wonderful solo playing by its dedicatee Barry Tuckwell. This nocturnal piece has some wonderful melodic writing against imaginative, weightless orchestration (I can't help think of this piece when I remember Calvino writing about 'lightness' in prose--this is a perfect musical analogue).

Music for a Puppet Court orchestrates two canons by the minor 16th century composer John Lloyd and--in between them--interposes rather more modernist riffs on the same material. In contrast, the Whitman Settings (orchestrated from a soprano/piano original) are more sober, drawing much of their musical material from the first phrase. If I'm to be honest, I don't always find the vocal line very interesting--and despite the merits of the orchestral writing, I think this is the weakest work on the disc.

The disc concludes with a brief Purcell-inspired Fantazia. It alternates between bleary sleepwalking and delightful parodies of Purcell's style.

Overall, an enjoyable collection. Knussen clearly knows his own strong and weak points as a composer, and naturally he conducts superbly. There may be only one masterpiece on this disc--I firmly believe the Horn Concerto deserves that epithet, though--but there are no weak links either, unless you count the rather ungenerous 51 minutes of playing time.

A Growing and Important Composer
While most concertgoers associate the name of Scottish composer/conductor Oliver Knussen with his successful operas in collaboration with Maurice Sendak - 'Higglety Pigglety Pop!' and 'Where the Wild Things Are' - his reputation in the field of works for orchestra is steadily growing. Knussen may not viewed to be as avant-garde as his contemporaries, opting more for outer filigree and occasional edginess to his central core of harmonics than for 'experimental, post-modern sounds', but his orchestration abilities are evolving into those of an important voice.

This recording is a potpourri of his works, and as such is varyingly interesting. The Horn Concerto is a first class work and Barry Tuckwell plays it for all the fun and delicate nuances it contains. 'The Way to Castle Yonder' works well as a symphonic reduction of the orchestral themes from 'Higglety Pigglety Pop!' and embraces the inherent humor that suffuses all of Knussen's writing. The 'Whitman Settings' for soprano and orchestra show one of Knussen's weaknesses: his writing for the soprano voice (her Lucy Shelton) throws the line into such high tessitura that the important words of Whitman's texts are wholly lost.

Perhaps the best news about Knussen is his current work before the audiences in concert halls today - his Violin Concerto. While it is a brief 17 minutes in length it is extraordinarily beautiful and accessible, this despite the fact that the violin part is excruciatingly demanding. Knussen is now pitting percussion against strings (gongs, harp, celesta, and all the range of the percussion arena accompany the isolated violin line) creating a mysterious and lavishly beautiful sound. It is a new work and is currently being surveyed by Leila Josefowicz and the LA Philharmonic with Esa-Pekka Salonen, and hearing this work for the first time in the brilliant acoustics of Disney Hall makes it very clear that this is a concerto that is destined to enter the standard repertoire. But until that recording comes along, this CD offers enough of a sampler of what this maturing composer can do. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 05