On track: Life after Lilburn comes with a dash of seaspray

By WILLIAM DART

For many of us, back in 1996, Christopher Blake's first (and only) symphony, The Islands, was far and away the high point of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's season that year.

With a piano concerto and an opera behind him, Blake seemed just the right man to prove there was life after Lilburn when it came to the New Zealand symphony.

Now the work and the moment (its Auckland performance in July 1996) are caught on a new Atoll CD.

The Islands is a bracing score, and the recording reaffirms this - Blake has an enviable ability, perhaps unique among New Zealand composers, to conceive his music in broad statements, music that is not afraid to embrace both lyricism (the opening cello duet, for example) and, on more than one occasion, clustering dissonance.

Inspired by three Charles Brasch sonnets, the connections followed up in the symphony are emotional rather than specific. However, listeners given to visualising their musical experiences may well feel more than a dash of seaspray in the second movement.

A few minor glitches, including the occasional winter cough, don't detract from this historic performance, ably conducted by Lucas Vis.

Blake's undisputed forte is the short orchestral piece and the CD includes three.

We All Fall Down is an elegy, a commentary on the child as war victim, growing out of David Chickering's lingering cello solo and holding us captive until the poignant Last Post of the closing bars.

Echelles de Glace, which remembers a young climber killed on the Matterhorn, creates tension and drama through powerful scale figures, while The Furnace of Pihanga has conductor Marc Taddei and the players spilling off the top end of the Richter scale at one point. Yet there is room for some exquisite chamber music scoring when the texture reduces to piano trio, wind and glockenspiel.

This is a fine project, giving music that is significant for us the performances and recording that it deserves. My only quibble is that the Auckland Philharmonia's original commissioning of one of the works was not acknowledged. It may have been an oversight, but it is a regrettable one. Some information on the three conductors would have been nice, too.

* Christopher Blake, The Islands (Atoll ACD 403)