Presto Editor's Choice
October 2020

Presto Recordings of the Year
Finalist 2020

Irene Buckley, Jennifer Koh (violin)

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Litton, André de Ridder

Clyne: Masquerade
Clyne: This Midnight Hour
Clyne: The Seamstress
Clyne: Night Ferry
Clyne: rewind

Anna Clyne: Mythologies showcases the composer’s enormous palette of colours and effects in five of her orchestral works, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and four internationally-acclaimed composers - Marin Alsop, Andrew Litton, Sakari Oramo and Andre de Ridder.

Anna Clynne’s enormous palette of colours and special effects coalesce into an aural three- dimensional experience of striking originality. Equally there’s a comforting familiarity to her music, as she draws inspiration from historic styles that she transforms into a new musical dialect. Anna’s background in electro-acoustic music and her fascination for a variety of multi- media - including poetry, visual art and videography - combine to create rich and exhilarating textures of popular appeal. The five works on Anna Clyne: Mythologies were written over a 10-year period between 2005 and 2015. The performances on the album feature the BBC Symphony Orchestra and four inter- nationally-acclaimed conductors. Masquerade, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to open the Last Night of the Proms 2013 and conducted by Marin Alsop, captures the spirit of that quintessen- tially English tradition. The title evokes an 18th-century outdoor festivity featuring fireworks, acrobats and street entertainers.

"Composed over the past 15 years, the pieces are arranged not in chronological order but in an engrossingly musical sequence not unlike that of a concert...To my mind the most impressive piece here is This Midnight Hour (2015), inspired by poems by Baudelaire and Juan Ramón Jiménez, compact, compelling and tautly directed by Oramo. Irrespective of the conductors, it is the BBC Symphony Orchestra who shine throughout, with superbly mastered sound (by Jody Elff). Another winner from Avie." - Gramophone Magazine, December 2020.