Creatures of Dust and Dreams is the first of Sarah Lianne Lewis’s works to be performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales since she was named as their composer affiliate a year ago. In this 10-minute piece, given its premiere by the orchestra under the baton of Finnegan Downie Dear, Lewis sought to reflect on the intrinsic frailty of the individual against their potential for gaining strength by reaching out to others. Conceived in 2019, pre-Covid, Lewis nevertheless recognised its resonance with the fears and uncertainties of the pandemic experience.
Quarter-tones lent a brash edge to the buoyancy of the opening, with clarinet multiphonics adding to the abrasive element and an ongoing sense of unease, all of which contrasted wildly with the more straightforward melodic lines and far-from-dissonant harmonies. The initial playfulness and the musical material’s tendency to meander and periodically peter out – albeit perhaps redolent of the insubstantiality of dream – meant that the work didn’t quite carry the philosophical weightiness that Lewis intended. Nevertheless, her assurance in handling the textures was more than evident.
The revelation of this concert was John Woolrich’s Viola Concerto, written in 1992 and first performed two years later. Constructed as a cycle of songs without words, steeped in the melancholy of leave-taking yet at the same time consolatory, each of its seven parts contains the briefest of references to music from the past – Mozart, Beethoven, Monteverdi and Wagner – allusive, elusive, redemptive. Soloist Timothy Ridout gave a performance of exceptional eloquence and maturity, and Downie Dear ensured that the players, both in their accompaniment and in the expansive orchestral sections, matched Ridout in sensitivity. The sheer beauty of it all was mesmerising and, by the end, profoundly moving.
After such emotion, Ravel’s ballet music Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) and its fairytale figures came as suitably festive light relief. Downie Dear balanced the score’s moments of languid delicacy with the more vibrant characterisations that, being Ravel, never become remotely pantomimic.
