Heloise Werner: Phrases
£19.90
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Label: Delphian
Cat No: DCD34269
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 24th June 2022
Contents
Works
Recitation 3Recitation 8
Recitation 9
Recitation 11
Something More Than Mortal
yhyhyhyhyh
whetdreem
Benedicite Recitation
Syncopate (Heloise Werner, Zoe Martlew)
Comme l'espoir/you might all disappear
Confessional
Like Words
Mixed Phrases
Unspecified Intensions
Artists
Heloise Werner (soprano)Amy Harman (bassoon)
Lawrence Power (violin, viola)
Calum Huggan (percussion)
Colin Alexander (cello)
Laura Snowden (guitar)
Daniel Shao (flute)
Works
Recitation 3Recitation 8
Recitation 9
Recitation 11
Something More Than Mortal
yhyhyhyhyh
whetdreem
Benedicite Recitation
Syncopate (Heloise Werner, Zoe Martlew)
Comme l'espoir/you might all disappear
Confessional
Like Words
Mixed Phrases
Unspecified Intensions
Artists
Heloise Werner (soprano)Amy Harman (bassoon)
Lawrence Power (violin, viola)
Calum Huggan (percussion)
Colin Alexander (cello)
Laura Snowden (guitar)
Daniel Shao (flute)
About
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Werner: Like Words
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2Stephenson: Comme l’espoir/you might all disappear
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3Werner/Mertlew: Syncopate
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4Frances-Hoad: Something More Than Mortal
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5Muhly: Benedicite Recitation
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6Aperghis: Récitation 3
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7Aperghis: Récitation 8
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8Werner: Unspecified Intentions
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9Aperghis: Récitation 9
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10Aperghis: Récitation 11
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11Werner: Confessional
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12Leith: yhyhyhyhyh
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13Mitchener: whetdreem
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14Werner: Mixed Phrases
Europadisc Review
The works range from the immediately inviting (Werner’s own Like Words for soprano and bassoon, which opens proceedings, and Cheryl France-Hoad’s Something More Than Mortal for solo voice), via the more meditative (Comme l’espoir/you might all disappear for voice and guitar by Werner’s long-time musical friend Josephine Stephenson), to pieces which explore the limits and connections between spoken word and music (four of Georges Aperghis’s Récitations, and Werner’s own Confessional). There are pieces where language and music seem to be in a process of disintegration (Oliver Leith’s yhyhyhyhyh for voice and detuned, gamba-like cello) and have even broken down altogether (Elaine Mitchener’s whetdreem for barely articulate vocal noises in the space between consciousness and sleep, against a backdrop of precisely specified sound effects including an array of ticking timepieces).
The common factor across this kaleidoscopic programme is Werner’s extraordinary vocal virtuosity and range, which has invited comparisons with such luminaries as Cathy Berberian and Meredith Monk, and which brings to all these works a sense of commitment and collaboration that is constantly fascinating and engaging. In works that so often rely on the play of words and/or musical cells, she brings a sense of playfulness and colour, relishing the microstructures and fragmentation while sustaining a longer expressive arc. It takes an artist of great inner confidence to project convincingly the self-referential texts common to many of these pieces, and Werner does so triumphantly.
Her collaborators include bassoonist Amy Harman (masterly in the instrument’s upper register in Like Words), guitarist Laura Snowden, flautist Daniel Shao (in Nico Muhly’s captivating Benedicite Recitation, whose opening echoes that of Like Words), and cellist Colin Alexander (who also provides the excellent booklet notes). Percussionist Calum Huggan coordinates the multiple sound effects of whetdreem, while Lawrence Power takes up both violin and viola in the disc’s longest work, Werner’s mesmerisingly brilliant Mixed Phrases on a text by Arthur Rimbaud, commissioned by Power as part of a lockdown project.
While all these duos introduce extra layers of sonority and meaning, the solo vocal items – with Aperghis’s Récitations and Werner’s Unspecified Intentions at their heart – are themselves so richly colourful and brilliantly inflected that, however far from conventional ‘musicality’ they might stray, their virtuosity and multi-layered references ensure the listener’s continued attention. The way in which Aperghis fragments and intercuts words and musical cells in spirals of varying intensity and speed presents a kind of microcosm of the album as a whole. Constantly challenging our expectations, this disc brims over with the best sort of surprises. By turns startling, hypnotic, exuberant and disturbing, it deserves to be heard by anyone with an interest in the art of vocal virtuosity, and in the way that words and music – together and individually – can construct meaning.
Supported by a range of organisations including the RVW and Ambache trusts and the PRS Foundation, and splendidly recorded by the Delphian team, this is one of the most stunning debut albums we’ve heard in a very long time, a magnificent achievement by Héloïse Werner and her musical collaborators.
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