University of York Music Press

Paul Conway writes: ‘David Lancaster’s Venezia (2024) is dedicated to Stravinsky, who is buried on the Isola di San Michele, Venice, between his wife Vera and his friend and collaborator Serge Diaghilev.  There were two sharply contrasting ideas, which jumped straight from one to another.  The first was assertive, strongly rhythmic and pitted with pauses, the second slower, gentler and more flowing and subsequently developed into a well-worked fugue.  In the closing bars the brusque opening chords were transformed into an expansive, elegiac evocation of Stravinsky’s tomb.  Providing a compelling interpretation, Jelena Makarova was alert to the painterly and formal qualities of this highly effective music homage.’  

Hayley Jenkins, who is a member of the UYMP associate group the NCN (Northern Composers’ Network), also received a premiere.  Paul Conway tells us: ‘Hayley Jenkins took the legend of the Firebird as the starting point for her new piece, The Death of Maryushka (2024), receiving its premiere performance.  Specifically, she was inspired by the story as retold by the American scholar of Russian history Suzanne Massie, centering on Maryushka, a gentle orphan girl known for her exquisite embroidery.  When she rejects the advances of an evil sorcerer, he turns her into a Firebird and himself into a black falcon.  As she is taken from her home, she sheds her glowing feathers to the ground below, enshrining her spirit.   Her glowing rainbow of feathers was magic and never dimmed, but only showed their colours to those who love and seek the beauty in others.  Hayley Jenkins took the oboe solo at the start of Stravinsky’s Ronde des Princesses Khorovode from L’Oiseau de Feu (1910) as the inspiration for the chord sequence that began her piano piece, but the material then evolved independently, to form a paean to Maryushka, her beautiful needlework and her story’s enduring message.  Beginning softly and with grave sincerity, the music became more fluently lyrical, rising to an impassioned climax before returning to a slow, gentle pace.  An ascending phrase in the keyboard’s higher regions concisely and gracefully suggested the title character taking wing and with a hushed reminder of the opening chords, the piece came to a quiet, dignified close.  In this vivid musical interpretation of the story, the unfolding events were clearly discernible, though the material had sufficient clarity and purpose, especially in Jelena Makarova’s eloquent rendering, to be enjoyed by listeners unaware of the underlying narrative.’

David Lancaster’s The Anatomy of Angels for clarinet, cello and piano was commissioned by Late Music, for the Amabile Trio, and premiered in the evening.  Paul Conway writes: ‘Also receiving its first performance, David Lancaster’s Anatomy of Angels, for clarinet, cello and piano (2024) was inspired by the incomplete angel studies of the Italian sculptor and architect  Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), displayed in the Vatican Museum.  The piece was cast in five sections and caught some of the delicate, fragmented nature of Bernini’s five preparatory models.  Two of the sections were written in an openly Baroque style, but the whole piece had an assured, neo-classical drive and polish that gave much pleasure.  This accomplished score was heard to full advantage in the Amabile Trio’s glowing committed performance.‘