An excerpt from Conway, P. (2006) ‘John Metcalf CD and opera performance’, Tempo, 60(236): 78-79.
Highlights of John Metcalf ’s chamber music featured in a valuable 1997 LORELT release (LNT111), and a Nimbus disc now usefully brings together some of his recent large-scale works, including the substantial Cello Symphony. This was premièred at Llandaff Cathedral at the 2004 Vale of Glamorgan Festival, an event captured on this CD in an admirably spacious and natural recording. Raphael Wallfisch brings lyrical, deeply expressive playing to the radiant solo line, and the inclusion of harp, wordless male voices and organ to the orchestra firmly roots the piece in Metcalf ’s native Wales. The Cello Symphony is in one flowing movement, divided into three sections. The absence of ‘chromatic’ notes in this piece (and the other two works featured on the disc) may confirm your faith in tonality, or leave you yearning for some dissonance to spice up the harmonies. I really enjoyed the Cello Symphony’s frequently ecstatic beauty and caught a touch of Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony in its long-breathed paragraphs, brass-led transitions and wide arching figures. The committed and passionate performance helps enormously to engage the listener throughout.
Mapping Wales started out as a piece for solo piano, entitled Endless Song. Metcalf then developed the work for harp and string quartet, further expanding it for harp and string orchestra, which is the version recorded on the Nimbus release. It takes the form of a set of variations in search of a theme – the ‘Endless Song’, which only emerges in full splendour at the end. The composer discovers much variety of expression, despite his reduced forces and restricted notes, and the modal harmonies breathe a timeless, archaic air in tune with the Celtic inspiration behind the piece. The choral work Plain Chants benefits from excellent singing by the Ardwyn Singers of Cardiff and their conductor Helena Braithwaite. In this work, Metcalf shows something of John Tavener’s gift for building memorable chorales from the sketchiest of plainsong-like fragments.
The Nimbus CD is a very welcome addition to the catalogue. I hope it heralds further releases devoted to John Metcalf.