Northings review of Mr Jonathan Morton, His Ground

Activity: OtherMedia (Press)

Description

"Works by contemporary British composer Martin Suckling, Benjamin Britten and JS Bach resonated with each other beautifully in a programme that took the audience from unfamiliar territory to an experience of the sublime. Mr Jonathan Morton, His Ground - Postcard #2 draws inspiration from the aural ground of the oldest form of music making. The second in a series of Musical Postcards by Martin Suckling, created and receiving their world premieres during the Scottish Ensemble's 2012/13 season, this work inspires curiosity in its treatment of form and in the relationships drawn between accompanying works in the programme. Suckling scores the traditional ground bass line for first violin as a circular structural element, underpinning a series of variations where silence, compressed and expanded fragments of musical time are utilised to deliver a four minute work of unexpected texture, economy and complexity. There is a degree of playfulness with the element of time in this composition which inspires contemplation, in relation to the programme as a whole and with the idea of timeless muiscal form: Bach's definitive variations inspiring subsequent generations of composers including Britten and Suckling himself. This work also feels very much about the "ground" of the soloist, the Ensemble's Artistic Director Jonathan Morton; the spirit of exploration of musical form in the commissioning of new work, the dynamic juxtaposition of works from all periods of music as variations of human expression through time and each performance as an exciting and uniquely nuanced variation of the original composition." (Georgina Coburn)
Period10 Dec 2012
Event titleConcert - Scottish Ensemble - 'Variations'
Event typePerformance
LocationInverness, United KingdomShow on map