New Casken CD evokes landscape and culture of Northumberland
Choral tribute to poetry and place
Out today (March 13) is a new album of choral music by composer John Casken, inspired by the landscape and coastline of Northumberland, where he lives, and also by its history and poetry.
Uncertain Sea, released on the Métier label, features the Joyful Company of Singers, a highly regarded London chamber choir, under the direction of its founder and conductor, Peter Broadbent.
The album includes musical settings of poems by Katrina Porteous, who lives in the Northumberland coastal village of Beadnell, and Casken himself.
And these two leading cultural figures from the region find themselves in the company of the late and the great, including Caedmon, the 7th Century Northumbrian cowherd and poet, George Herbert, John Donne, Robert Burns, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Sylvia Townsend Warner.
It’s beautifully done, a serene and thought-provoking listen, which brings together pieces composed over the past few years.
The opening piece is also the title track, Uncertain Sea being a setting of two Porteous poems, one of them in the Northumbrian dialect. It was premiered at what is now The Glasshouse in 2014, performed by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.
Dappled Things was inspired by a famous Gerard Manley Hopkins poem and composed as a 60th birthday gift for fellow composer James MacMillan. Ae Fond Kiss is a setting of the Robert Burns poem and Memorial a tribute to the men of Upper Coquetdale who died in the First World War and whose bodies were never found.
John Casken’s talents extend beyond music for the cover of the new CD features his painting of Dunstanburgh Castle and the crashing waves of the North Sea.
If you happen to be in London on March 19 there’s to be a launch event at St Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico.
Casken, born in Barnsley but long resident in rural Northumberland, has composed a wide variety of music and notched up many musical achievements. He was composer-in-association with Royal Northern Sinfonia for 10 years and professor of music at Manchester University for 16 (MacMillan was a student of his).
He has long acknowledged the influence on his work of the Northumbrian landscape.
The digital edition of the album contains two extra tracks – Tree of Angels, for solo cello and organ, and From One Thread for solo viola. These are performed by Kim Vaughan (cello), Tom Wilkinson (organ) and Bridget Carey (viola).