Festival Music
Wave Movements
The Hub
Four Stars
Miranda Heggie
For centuries, the sea has been a source of fascination to musicians, artists and writers, and despite huge advances in human knowledge, we’ve still only explored less than five per cent of the earth’s oceans. No wonder then that the mysteries of the sea still are still an inspiration to composers today. In what was the Scottish Premiere of a new work by composers Bryce Dessner and Richard Reed Parry, the string players of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Gerry Cornelius, gave a hypnotic and moving rendition of Wave Movements.
Written directly to rhythms taken from waves and tides, the piece is set to a film made by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, based on his iconic Seascape images from the 1980s. Although beautiful and compelling, the still calm visuals don’t always match the music, especially in the more tumultuous sections of the piece.
Showcasing each composer’s individual work, the second half opened with Richard Reed Parry’s Interruptions I – VII (Heart and Breath Nonet). Scored for a small ensemble, each performer wears a stethoscope over their chest to allow them to hear their own heartbeats. With the music based on the players’ breathing patterns, no two performances of this work will ever be quite the same.
Bryce Dessner’s Murder Ballades is a work comprised of seven short movements based on US folksongs written about brutal killings. Despite the gruesome premise, the work is surprisingly upbeat as Dessner reworks these traditional melodies in a playful and innovative way. The first movement in the set, Omie Wise, has a strong, driven rhythm, and the final section, Tears for Sister Polly, makes clever use of subtle harmonic shifts.
Sponsored by Russian Standard Vodka
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here