Nicola LeFanu reviews
Relationships
Malu Lin (violin), Giles Swayne (piano) (Resonus)
Nicola LeFanu: The Crimson Bird, etc
BBC Symphony Orchestra; RTE National Symphony Orchestra, et al (NMC)
Mandala 3: Sarah Leonard and Aleksander Szram perform choral works by Lefanu and Lumsdaine
As the warm introductory note from musical director Ian Mitchell suggests, this disc stems from friendships both musical and personal: between composers David Lumsdaine and Nicola LeFanu, and chamber ensemble Gemini. Indeed, listening to the disc is something like being party to an intimate, intelligent and far-ranging conversation among old friends.
Lefanu
Nicola LeFanu, daughter of the composer Elizabeth Maconchy, was a rising young star in the 1970s. But then she seems to have dropped out of fashion. So it’s useful to have this update on her work from Naxos. More than ‘useful’, in fact: the main work, Catena for 11 Solo Strings, is a piece of real individuality and substance, making highly expressive use of the contrast between natural tuning, microtones and the equal temperament on which Western classical music has been based since the time of Bach.
Anthony Powers, Elisabeth Lutyens, Nicola Lefanu, Graham Williams
Widely differing aspects of the clarinet emerge in these recordings. Cohler presents a balanced programme of masterworks, while Langdon-Davies concentrates on showpieces and the Mühlfeld Ensemble on recent compositions.
Maconchy, Lefanu, Whitehead, Lumsdaine
The success of Barbara Bonney’s European career has led her to suspend for a while the nourishment of her own musical root-system. Now, as part of the strong and continuing jet-stream of releases of American song, she contributes an irresistible recital of her own to the catalogue.