DEUX-ELLES DXL 1202 (3 Discs)

This is a hugely rewarding issue by one of the most innovative and appealing composers of our time, and is highly recommended. Most pieces here (but not all) include guitar, reflecting Goss’s distinguished career as performer and academic of the instrument. In three tightly-packed discs, we traverse a breathtaking range of styles, not least because the key to Goss’s pluralist compositional process is his exhilarating use of transformation, adaptation, distortion and pastiche.

There is insufficient room to cover every work here but the performances are superb throughout. One slight quibble with the presentation is that the titles have not been encoded on the CDs, so continual reference to the very thorough and attractive booklet is required. 

Marylebone Elegy, an expansion of part of Goss’s 2012 guitar concerto, is played by John Williams with his typical poise and finesse. Although it is a deliberate evocation of Elgar that should have already alerted Classic FM, its new guise seems also a nod to the Adagio assai of Ravel’s G major concerto: just listen to the orchestra’s caressing entry over the extended solo opening of the soloist.

La Serenissima for solo violin and string quartet, is also a hushed reworking of an earlier concerto; while Goss’s Theorbo Concerto, apparently the first ever, is not content to evoke past glories but employs figuration of blues, jazz and a great deal else. Six Intermezzi for Romantic guitar and a chiming fortepiano are founded on fragments of Schubert’s Lieder, and although these references are less overt, it is certainly this sense of looking at familiar material through the wrong end of a telescope that contributes greatly to the enticing quality of the discs. 

More experimental in form, although still accessible to the average listener, is a meditative updating of the Orpheus myth, Rough Music for piano and spoken voice. A narrator also leads us through Under Milk Wood Variations with accompaniment by the accomplished TETRA Quartet. Exhalation for organ explores the instrument’s extremes of mood and register, while The Sea of the Edge (a feature on the Moon) is depicted by solo flute with icy electronics. Wynwood Walls, a sort of Pictures at an Exhibition for guitar and string quartet, takes inspiration from Seurat, Hopper’s Nighthawks, a neon sign by Tracey Emin, and others. None of this background information should deter the adventurous listener, since all is intriguing, while obviously repaying repeated attention. 

Some works are immediately alluring, such as the uproarious Cocktail List for two guitars: 13 miniatures, a few only seconds long, inspired by everything from a Mojito (entirely percussive) to a Manhattan. Why has no-one thought of this before? Once again, several are reworkings of past material, including Gershwin, whose second Prelude and It ain’t necessarily so scamper past, are shaken but not stirred. Similarly, all five movements of Caught Between for cello and piano, are reworkings of older material, from Pat Metheny to Miles Davis. The work’s electrifying close is based on the infamous Precipitato from Prokofiev’s seventh sonata (here played by the fearless Graham Caskie), overlaid with Thomas Carroll’s frenetic cello obbligato. 

I do not expect to hear a more thrilling piece of chamber music this year.

Review by Andrew Plant