‘Absorbing miniatures’ Tempo
Availability
Score and part 0571512976 on sale
Programme Notes
To explain the title would, obviously, take away the enigma: but there is nothing particularly mysterious intended, only an indication of the rather introverted, hermetic nature of the music (and the musical processes employed). The work is, however, simple to describe – the outer movements are both basically fast and hectic, though with moments of repose, and a feature of both is that cello and piano have extended passages in unison. The central piece is perhaps the most clearly ‘enigmatic’: a virtually solo mediation for the cello with only the most simple of piano accompaniments.
Colin Matthews
Reviews
‘Absorbing miniatures which play quirky games with listener’s formal expectations in music bediating between turbulence and repose.’
Tempo (Anthony Bye) April 1995
‘With its low, quiet, premonitory repeated staccatos, thrumming pizzicatos, and double-stopped figures straining to outline a melodic arch, this short movement - less than four minutes long - brings to mind the sharply-etched solo proclamations in Britten’s Symphony for Cello and Orchestra. Although Three Enigmas totals just under ten minutes long, music so concentrated and so fraught with implication has more impact than many much longer pieces.’
American Record Guide (Lehman), May/June 1999
"The music here is tautly constructed, clear and succinctly expressed - three short studies which draw imaginatively on cello sonority, and, in tight rhythmic patterns and firm lines, create a readily communicated sense of tense drama, highlighted by the contrasts and blendings of the keyboard colours." Geoffrey Norris, Daily Telegraph, 5 February 1986