Elias String Quartet / Alexan - Emily Howard: Magnetite [CD]

Magnetite is the first portrait album from composer Emily Howard. These vivid recordings illustrate the paradoxes omnipresent in Howard's music, with Helen Wallace writing in the liner notes that, "listening to these dynamic, exquisitely rendered scores we're struck by their expressive power. Yet one is conscious, too, in their structural rigour, of the potency of mathematical concepts in the composer's process; of her wrestling with opposing forces." The release was met with critical acclaim, with BBC Radio 3's Record Review calling it "a confident, major orchestral debut ... Scientific ideas brilliantly articulated." <p>Magnetite (2007) was Howard's first major orchestral commission for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, which has gone on to be performed regularly across the world. Magnetite is the oldest known magnetic substance and Howard describes this piece as "a journey deep inside one of these crystals" - a concept which The Times called "a clever idea, boldly realised". <p>Continuing a similar theme, Solar (2010) creates a musical image of our sun, using luminous, resonant sonorities and bursts of energy. The Financial Times praised the work for its ability "to suggest galactic power on a compact scale". <p>Mesmerism (2011) for piano and chamber orchestra is one in a series of works inspired by Ada Lovelace, the pioneering mathematician and daughter of Byron. This piece won a British Composer Award in 2012 with the BASCA judges commenting that "the harmonic language of the music is lucid and beautiful, sustaining at the heart of the piece a great sense of stillness. This is an original voice". <p>Works for smaller forces on this album include Afference (2014) for string quartet; Leviathan (2014-15) for baritone saxophone and percussion and Threnos (2015), a three-part song for bass and soprano voices (including the bass voice in falsetto). <p>This album is part of our Debut Discs series.