Sunday Tribune
"Commissioned by the Serbian musical forces in ardent evidence here, Ian Wilson's 2005 Sullen Earth is an archetype of a more recent compositional process that focuses on "stand-alone" building blocks of musical thought.
The result is a distillation of conventional narrative or technical development into raw cells of emotion. Here combined with piano and strings, a more melodically florid affair, and the suite, 'The Capsizing Man', itself a juxtaposition of five concisely contemplated ideas, the disc is a well-balanced recital in itself.
The added bonus is the presence of the composer as conductor." (5/5)
(5 stars) Sunday Tribune, 23rd August 2009. (Karen Dervan)
Wilson: Sullen Earth; Limena; The Capsizing Man (Riverrun)
Two years ago, Riverrun released a disc of Ian Wilson's string quartets - four of them - and has now brought together three of his works involving string orchestra. Wilson's style has changed since 1999, when he was forced by Nato bombing to leave Belgrade and return to Ireland. The later music seems rougher hewn: less concerned with making formal patterns and more with expressing what it wants to say directly, often by boldly juxtaposing contrasting kinds of music material. That technique is seen in Sullen Earth for violin and strings, from 2005, in which everything is pared down to its emotional core, allowing the highly wrought textures to relax just once for an archaic-sounding lyrical interlude. Limena, from 1998, expands a solo piano by surrounding it with muted string textures, while the five taut miniatures that make up The Capsizing Man and Other Stories are all inspired by Giacometti sculptures
(3 stars) The Guardian, 21 August 2009 (Andrew Clements)
Album: Ian Wilson, Sullen Earth (River Run Records)
Blistered and bent intoquartertones, the bucklingsolo line in Ian Wilson's2005 violin concerto"Sullen Earth" picksobsessively at fragile, folklikefigures before burstinginto lyricism against thewheezing, accordion-likeharmonies of the stringorchestra.
It's a bold work,and a bold performancefrom Gordana Matijevic-Nedeljkovic and theBelgrade Strings, who alsoaccompany pianist HughTinney in Wilson'ssubdued "Limena" (1998).Disturbing and cute, "TheCapsizing Man?" seesWilson at his mostaccessible.
Sunday, 16 August 2009 (Anna Picard)
