Gibbons - Muhly : My Days

Description

Orlando Gibbons was a genius. We can probably all agree that this term is massively anachronistic. Yet I think it is justified, in order to place his music on the same high level as that of Purcell, Beethoven or Schubert. It is certainly difficult to establish such analogies, insofar as his music is still relatively little performed compared with these more illustrious names, but the fertility of Gibbons’s imagination, his exceptional mastery of his material, his emotional depth and maturity, the exquisite finesse of his turns of phrase, his harmonic assurance, his ease and mastery of counterpoint – all this places him among the very first ranks of composers. Richard Boothby “My Days is a ritualized memorial piece around Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), written for two ensembles whose recordings have profoundly nourished my musical development. I feel like I spend half my life trying to make strings play like Fretwork… so it was with immense pleasure that I composed this piece.” Nico Muhly