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| Richard Barnard, Richard Gowers, Roxanna Panufnik, Matilda Lloyd, Deborah Pritchard, Owain Park at St George’s Hanover Sq. for the launch of Fantasia (Picture: Dominik Zaczek) |
In July, I met up with trumpeter Matilda Lloyd for a chat about her new disc with organist Richard Gowers, Fantasia on Chandos Information [see my interview, ‘New challenge and new repertoire’]. The disc is launched subsequent week (19 September) with two singles from the album already out there.
On Monday 8 September 2025, there was a launch occasion for the disc at St George’s Hanover Sq. (the place Richard Gowers is the music director). On the occasion, Matilda Lloyd and Richard Gowers have been joined by the 4 composers whose works are premiered on the disc, Roxanna Panufnik, Richard Barnard, Deborah Pritchard and Owain Park. It was a terrific alternative to listen to these items dwell and listen to from the composers.
Lloyd and Gowers started with the intriguing sound world of trumpet and organ within the toccata from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue BWV 565, the work which first gave Lloyd the thought for performing Baroque music with trumpet and organ again when she was at Junior Guildhall.
Richard Barnard defined that his piece, On the Borders of Sleep arose as a result of he related the phrase fantasia with fantasy which led him to the thought of falling asleep and the thoughts wandering to unique locations. And he commented that at his age (!) napping was necessary and the preliminary tune of the piece got here to him like that. The preliminary melody was surprisingly jazzy, and Barnard then put it by its paces utilizing a wide range of completely different mutes (all through the live performance Matilda Lloyd used a collection of devices and mutes), resulting in a climax after which the music evaporating.
Deborah Pritchard has been impressed by gentle not too long ago. Her piece The sunshine thereof was written for Matilda Lloyd and the Gesualdo Six for his or her 2024 disc Radiant Daybreak on Hyperion (which additionally has a bit by Richard Barnard on it).
For Matilda Lloyd’s Fantasia album, Pritchard wrote Mild Enkindled. taking the thought of fantasia in direction of improvisation. The opening noticed the trumpet supported by spare sustained notes within the organ, one thing that Pritchard described as akin to utilizing a piano sustaining pedal. When the organ did be a part of the trumpet, the 2 had more and more florid components, some dazzling writing resulting in a climax earlier than evaporating.
Roxanna Panufnik’s Echo makes use of each trumpet and its huge brother, the flugelhorn. Panufnik defined that when writing instrumental music she favored to make use of a textual content or a picture for inspiration. Right here she used Christina Rosetti’s poem Echo – ‘Come to me within the silence of the evening’, with the piece written very like a tune. The solo line contrasted the mellow flugelhorn with the upper, brighter trumpet, accompanied by an organ half that had a barely unique really feel to it.
Matilda Lloyd has been collaborating with Owain Park and the Gesualdo Six since 2018, although she and Park return so far as their college days. For his piece, Heat, hazy rain, Park defined that he wished to seize a picture, what it will really feel and sound like – ‘an individual in transit throughout the summer time months, maybe gazing out of a prepare window or reminiscing a few leisurely bicycle trip by heat, misty nation lanes’. Utilizing the flugelhorn to create a gently lyrical solo which contrasted with the regular ahead movement of the moderately neo-Baroque organ writing.
We ended with extra Baroque music, the bravura prospers of Giovanni Battista Martini’s Toccata.
Fantasia is accessible to order from a wide range of music providers – see http://lnk.to/CHAN20345
