Search - Howard Skempton, Mark Wigglesworth, BBC Symphony Orchestra :: Howard Skempton: Lento

One-dimensional refined construction,walls of sound

Rachel Abbinanti (tusai1@aol.com) | Chicago | 07/16/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Howard Skempton emerged in England, a craftsman of the directly accessible, the melodic,and the economy of means. His music draws sustenance from the everyday,pub songs,social events,the spirit of human dialogue,dances,and the known genres of the piano. His music is Satie-like with a focus to draw the breath of the world within the discourse of a few rolled chords,a waltz rhythm,voicing his tones lapidarian,constructing cathedrals within the four corners of a postcard. "Lento" here traverses virtually Mahlerian lengths within the confines of the Skempton oeuvre of short lengths,usually three minutes at most. It adheres to the current or long past buzz of minimal means. Except for Skempton minimalism has been a lifeworld work since the early Seventies."Lento" displays walls of impenetrable sound,static,scasling within itself,and once I fell into the trap of listening to it in the morning. My entire day then was coloured by the nuanced emotive annxiety that is here. Skemptons minimalist credo does not extend toward grafting each tone microscopically,there is always a short distance to what the human voice can sing. Fractal-thinking is not here. Instead the orchestration adheres to a Skemptonian functional directness,ric yet one-dimensional. There are nuances of balanced of sound, but that is not the sonic contrapuntal argument here. It's a shame this is currently not available. If you are minimalist enthusiast,you must know how Skempton has contributed to this what is now a dead,wholly exhausted musical language in the United States."