"… engrossing and ultimately rewarding" — Colin Anderson
As ever, Kenneth Hesketh issues musical challenges that are engrossing and ultimately rewarding. Composed between 2006 and 2023, this seventy-minute collection rivets the attention, whether the music is fiercely combative, glacially lyrical, intensely expressive or delicate, the latter quality worthy of Debussy or Ravel albeit in a style different to either.
In Poetic Conceits, one journeys through the six movements, playing continuously, willingly, eager to hear the next chapter in this page-turner of a set; like much of Birtwistle’s output, molten passions beneath the surface tend to rise upwards and spill-over like a volcano. The other substantial pieces – the fifteen-minute Hände and the slightly longer Auszüge aus einem kleinen Totenbuch – are equally vibrant and directional, both highly inventive, with Hände including Tibetan-suggestive chiming timbres in addition to those of the piano, all part of the mysteries, and dramatic eruptions, that this piece exudes; whereas Auszüge aus einem kleinen Totenbuch (Excerpts From a Small Book of the Dead) ripples and explores in memory of Joseph Horowitz. There are four shorter scores, including the touching Pour Henri (Dutilleux) and the pictorial Lullaby of the Land Beyond, in memory of Oliver Knussen, and more enigmatic than the inviting John Ireland- or Cyril Scott-like title might suggest. Once again Clare Hammond is a dedicated, fearless and charismatic champion of Hesketh’s music, well presented and dynamically recorded. Paladino Music PMR0137 is therefore enthusiastically recommended.