On 28 June Sean Shibe, GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble premiere Oliver Leith’s Doom and the Dooms for electric guitar, keyboard, percussion and strings at Wigmore Hall. At around 35 minutes it is one of Leith’s most substantial compositional statements since his chamber opera Last Days (2022) and the orchestral work Cartoon Sun, premiered by Thomas Adès and The Hallé in April 2024.
The concert is followed by a late-night performance of Leith’s good day good day bad day bad day (2018) from GBSR Duo, a mesmerising eight-movement work for keyboards and percussion that reflects Leith’s intense preoccupation with the ordinary and mundane. As in Last Days, everyday objects like wine bottles and keys are subsumed into the musical texture of the 45-minute work. It is, Leith notes, “a tender look at the simultaneously debilitating and beautiful irrationalities of our everyday lives”.
Leith’s new work imagines a fictional band performing their greatest hits. As one might expect, the electric guitar is the frontman, though sometimes falls back to offer accompanying music for hazy string chorales and mark tree melodies. The band’s songs have a bittersweet aspect, with titles such as All I ever wanted, Javelin shearwater and My Horse Named Dream - the latter recalling Dream Horse for soprano, bass, and chamber orchestra, which premiered at Tanglewood in 2018.
In Doom and the Dooms melting, melancholy harmonies sit alongside fast, virtuosic passagework for guitar, as well as the blurry microtonal string writing emblematic of Leith’s work. Leith composes the idiosyncrasies of a live gig into the work – the band mumble to introduce their songs, and the keyboard players whistles along to melodies. “The guitar has cultural baggage”, Leith notes, “so I’m embracing it, rather than avoiding it. Its baggage is material.”
The mumbling, melancholy rock star evokes the world of Leith’s debut chamber opera Last Days, whose world premiere recording is released on 28 June by Platoon, featuring 12 Ensemble, GBSR Duo, and conductor Jack Sheen. At the centre of the opera are the indistinct utterances of its protagonist Blake, a non-singing role first performed by actor Agathe Rouselle. Adapted from the 2005 film by Gus Van Sant, the 90-minute work tells the story of a rockstar’s final destructive spiral.
Last Days premiered at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre in autumn 2022 and received a sold-out US premiere in January 2024 from Thomas Adès, the LA Philharmonic and GBSR Duo. The opera featured costumes by Parisian couturier Balenciaga and was previewed in Vogue and The New York Times. Sean Shibe makes a cameo appearance on the recording, playing the guitar in the scene in which the Super-fan finally meets their idol Blake – listen here. In 2022 Shibe recorded an electric guitar version of Leith’s Pushing my thumb through a plate for his album Lost & Found.