Seasons by Helios - Night Music Album for Relaxation, Meditation & Sleep | Perfect for Yoga, Study & Stress Relief

The series devoted to British contemporary composers was one of the finest features of the catalog from the now sadly defunct Collins Classics label (another was their Britten series under the auspices of one of the composer's last assistant, Steuart Bedford), and this CD devoted to Thea Musgrave was one of their last instalments. Others concerned Michael Berkeley, Harrison Birtwistle, John Casken, Robin Holloway, the two Matthews brothers, Peter Maxwell Davies, Benedict Mason, Robert Saxton, John Tavener, Kevin Volans, Judith Weir, Hugh Wood, and I may be omitting a few. Naxos is reissuing the Brittens, and some of those contemporary British Composers have been picked up by NMC, including this one (Thea Musgrave: Helios or Thea Musgrave: Helios).It is powerful and imaginative music. The language is fully contemporary but never dry or intractable; on the contrary it is highly dramatic and evocative and displays a keen sense of orchestral color, not eschewing at times the big romantic gesture (but it is only occasional). "The Seasons" (1988) opens with a violent, agitated and syncopated Autumn, inspired not by the nostalgia of falling leaves and meditation upon the passing of things but by a painting of Piero di Cosimo (the Italian Renaissance painter) depicting a bloody hunt scene. It ends very poetically with a softening of dynamics and bells tolling the Dies Irae over a menacing undercurrent of strings. Winter has a plaintive oboe utter his calls over again mysterious tapestries of strings and delicately interlace with other solo instruments from the orchestra. Musgrave doesn't shun the descriptive effects, such as the cuckoo calls that open Spring (track 3), but to very poetic and atmospheric effect, nor the big Romantic gestures either, again in the same Spring, with its colors and melodies that sound veritably Delian at times. The Finale, "Summer", is an ebullient and romping Ivesian hodge-podge in which the Star Spangled Banner intermingles with the Marseillaise. You know what month you are in. But there is always an ominous undercurrent even in Musgrave's most seemingly carefree and optimistic music."Helios" (1995) is a Oboe Concerto after the Greek God who drove the sun-chariot across the sky. A recording can only give only a faint idea of the piece's impact, since the placement and movements of the various soloists on stage mimic graphically the story of Helios riding over the storm (four woodwinds, two horns and a trumpet representing his four white horses surrounding the other players in a V-shape like the chariot). The piece's architecture is the traditional slow-rising to fast and agitated (the storm, traversed by more wildly shrieking birds) and receding to calmness, again to fine poetic and dramatic effect. The contribution of Nicholas Daniels sounds outstanding."Night Music" is the earliest piece on the disc (1969). Not that I perceived much evolution in Musgrave's language since. It is a tone poem depicting what the composer called "a dream landscape". Again it displays the same kind of interaction between performers' movements on stage and the story told. Here the two horn players start close to each other and lyrically, then move away and the music becomes more dramatic, until they gradually move offstage, creating "an echo that powerfully recalls the transition from dream to awakening". The composition is beautifully atmospheric, very dramatic at times, and full of imaginative sonic events.This is one of the best among the many good offerings from Collins' series. Makes you want to explore more Musgrave.