Sam Hayden: Substratum

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While Hayden’s aesthetic often generates highly animated, complex and concentrated structures, subdued moments also filter through in the string quartet, recalling earlier, more spectral-inspired... — Gramophone Magazine, March 2020 More…

Release Date: 15th Nov 2019
Catalogue No: NMCD247
Label: NMC
Length: 81 minutes

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2019

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Hayden, S: Relative Autonomy

Work length13:55

$2.05

$3.85

$5.25

Ensemble Musikfabrik
Stefan Asbury

Hayden, S: String Quartet "Transience"

Work length31:37

Album only

$9.10

$12.25

Quatuor Diotima

Track length5:12

Album only

$1.30

$1.75

II.

Track length4:28

$2.05

$1.30

$1.75

III.

Track length4:12

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IV.

Track length4:28

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Track length3:46

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

VI.

Track length3:55

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

VII.

Track length5:36

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Hayden, S: Substratum

Work length24:45

$1.00

Album only

The BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson

Hayden, S: Die Abkehr

Work length11:07

$1.00

$3.85

$5.25

Ensemble Musikfabrik
Stefan Asbury

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About

The centrepiece of this album is formed by a substantial string quartet in seven movements. To anyone who knows Sam Hayden and his music, the seemingly traditional genre may come as a surprise. Transience, here performed by Quatour Diotima, explores the sonics of extended techniques - it is a work full of soft, ‘whistling’ overtones as well as microtones.

It is dedicated to the late Jonathan Harvey, who was Sam Hayden's teacher, mentor and friend. Relative Automony, for 16 players, is dense, rich and visceral. A heavy layer of bass instruments – contrabass clarinet and contrabassoon, tuba and bass trombone, cello and double bass – is contrasted with the prominent use of instruments at the opposite extreme, such as piccolo fl ute and E fl at clarinet. Substratum follows in a similiar vein but includes contrast between passages of frantic activity and sudden periods of stasis when notes are sustained as if frozen in time.

This album includes the bonus track Die Abkehr. Hayden explains, ‘the more poetic meanings of the title hint at a critical commentary on the increasingly nostalgic and inward-looking culture of the UK ... the composition is the latest of a cycle of pieces that combine ideas related to “spectral” traditions with algorithmic approaches to composition, where aspects of the pitch and rhythmical materials are computer-generated using IRCAM’s OpenMusic.’

Reviews

March 2020

While Hayden’s aesthetic often generates highly animated, complex and concentrated structures, subdued moments also filter through in the string quartet, recalling earlier, more spectral-inspired works such as Presence/absence and Partners in Psychopathology: proof, perhaps, that the gestural substrata revealed in these works still hold future riches for the composer to mine.

17th November 2019

The title piece is a large-orchestral unfolding that unites compelling turbulence with rarest detail.

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