THE DREAM OF THE ROOD
“Honouring Casken at 70, this is among the Hilliard’s last recordings, and aptly includes one of their “standards”, Pérotin’s Viderunt omnes, with its innovative four-part plainsong. Here it comes in Casken’s transcription, with modern ensemble. For the same forces, he composed The Dream of the Rood (2008), his adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon: a captivating structure with a hint of the ritual austerity of Stravinsky’s late cantatas.” Paul Driver, The Sunday Times
STOLEN AIRS
‘This disc of ‘chamber music with piano, 2002-18’ includes Casken’s Six Wooded Pieces, for piano (Kenneth Hamilton), but the other items strictly follow the rubric. Stolen Airs for cello (Philip Higham) and piano (Alasdair Beatson) makes a superb, haunting single-movement sonata. Serpents of Wisdom is an impressive invention for horn (Alec Frank-Gemmill) and piano, and Casken’s Piano Trio is a powerful paraphrase of his Tolstoyan opera, God’s Liar.’ Paul Driver, Sunday Times
‘Shadowed Pieces is beautifully written, a piece of real depth… Stolen Airs … is incredibly powerful. … Six Wooded Pieces … a fabulous new piece for the piano repertoire … The austere expressiveness of Serpents of Wisdom marks it as a major addition to the horn repertoire. … A beautifully varied tapestry, the Piano Trio includes sounds of the utmost beauty’
Colin Clarke, Fanfare Archive
KOKOSCHKA’S DOLL
‘superb, unmissable’Independent
‘compelling performances’ Opera
***** BBC Music Magazine
‘Sir John Tomlinson sings the part of Kokoschka … he passionately and movingly inhabits the character of the painter … The shifting landscapes and mental states are reflected in the powerful instrumental and vocal score and spoken text. The work is rich in associations set off by Casken’s deployment of subtle musical and literary allusions. … This is one of those rare productions I would watch again soon, in order to fully savour its richness.’ Valeria Vescina, Seen and Heard
‘Kokoschka’s Doll — a darkly expressive melodrama written by John Casken for the enterprising Counterpoise ensemble and John Tomlinson’s resounding bass. … vividly conveyed in a mutating flow of speech, sung lines and the half-and-half house of Sprechgesang.
Tomlinson’s bass lustre is powerfully combined with the atmospheric and pungent timbres of Counterpoise, featuring violin, trumpet, clarinet/saxophone and piano — a miniature orchestra in itself. … For its ambition and general achievement, this is an album worth cheering.’
Geoff Brown, The Times
‘Unfolding between past and present, the text provides plenty of leeway for Sir John Tomlinson to convey the tortured while not a little self-seeking protagonist through an adept interplay of speech and parlando – dispatched with his inimitable blend of fiery rhetoric and soulful rumination. Instrumentally the music is rich in timbral and textural nuance, following the emotional ebb and flow of Kokoschka’s musings as they spill over into the irrational. An engrossing concept, skilfully realized, which would certainly be worth presenting in a scenic version at some of the UK’s many studio-theatres.’
Richard Morrison, Arcana.fm
APOLLINAIRE’S BIRD
“John Casken’s Apollinaire’s Bird is at once an oboe concerto and a meditation on the sad brutality of war. Beautifully crafted, it’s a rich, emotionally complex work.”Tim Ashley, The Guardian
“The control with which Casken allows tonally-founded harmonies to rise, Alban Berg-like, to the surface, is as remarkable as the fastidiousness of his orchestration, all of which serves to hold concept and craft in ideal balance.”The Telegraph
“It is a powerful, mesmerizing and haunting work, surely one of the major concertos of recent years.” Peter Connors, Bachtrack
CELLO CONCERTO
“Casken’s music seems to gain steadily in its scope and the precision of its expressive effects. The new concerto is elegantly proportioned and seamlessly constructed. The sense of colloquy, of ideas passing back and forth is exact, yet the music still manages to be virtuosic in an unflamboyant way, with vivid cello writing and sharp-etched rhythmic patterns.”Andrew Clements, The Guardian
DEADLY PLEASURES
“What a fascinating, ear-catching, image-conjuring work it is. Casken has dramatically embraced and revivified the technique of melodrama. At almost half an hour this is a substantial work but it is not a minute too long.” Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone
GOD’S LIAR
“Casken has created a powerful score, his own distinctive musical voice coloured by Russian and church-music influences refracted through the late 20th century. His introduction of snatches of pastiche and parody are not only genuinely amusing but also entirely appropriate to the satire of Tolstoy’s original [novella, Father Sergius]” Independent
“Musically the score is as subtly detailed and as flexible to the needs of dramatic momentum as one would expect from the composer of Golem. Powerfully-drawn vocal lines project the text with admirable clarity and help keep the complementary male characters in focus. God’s Liar is a thoughtful equating of narrative ambiguity with dramatic immediacy.Richard Whitehouse, www.classicalsource.com
GOLEM
“With varied harmonies which only rarely verge on the illustrative, Casken succeeds in creating an intense, tension-filled music-theatre with a profoundly striking and powerful symbolism. In this work the English composer offers a good example that with ‘New Music’ one doesn’t have to be one of the in-crowd.” Michael-Georg Müller, Westfälische Rundschau
“Golem weaves its way like an accurate allegory of political-cultural history.” Jürgen Otten, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“It is an interesting and powerful work, precisely and imaginatively composed. Both the music and the libretto, the composer’s own, are pared and pungent. They strike deep.” Andrew Porter, The New Yorker
KOKOSCHKA’S DOLL
“The work is rich in associations set off by Casken’s deployment of subtle musical and literary allusions. This is one of those rare productions I would watch again soon in order to fully savour its richness.” Valeria Vescina, Seen and Heard International
“John Tomlinson gave a magnificent performance as Kokoschka, inhabiting the role completely and switching easily as required between sung text, spoken text and sprechgesang. The small, virtuosic ensemble was an agile partner, skilfully delivering Casken’s imaginative score. He deliberately evokes the fin-de-siecle idiom of the work’s setting and interweaves ghost-like threads of [Wagner’s] Liebestod; but his own eloquent musical voice is the driving force.” Clare Stevens, Opera Magazine
MISTED LAND
“Richard Hosford’s clarinet and the Nash strings darted delectably around a constantly shifting, mysterious landscape.” Geoff Brown, The Times
ORION OVER FARNE
“There can be an angular and dissonant side to Casken’s music (never taken to excess); and while Orion has this plentifully, its four movements are tempered by his innate lyricism and often beguiling orchestration.” Guy Rickards, Gramophone
“Early modernism, especially Berg, seems the starting point [for Casken’s musical thought], and he has developed ideas into ever smoother craft. The 1995 Violin Concerto, a classical three-movement structure, though with a “programme” relating to his opera on Tolstoy’s Father Sergius novella, unfolds with immense fluency, though not without vehemence. The Concerto for Orchestra is a persuasive essay with delicate harmonic touches and plenty of Caskenian oomph. Most brazenly inspired is the 1984 symphonic poem Orion over Farne, evoking the poetry of Basil Bunting.” Paul Driver, reviewing the Hallé/NMC CD in The Sunday Times
SYMPHONY (BROKEN CONSORT)
“The score is a considerable achievement, its tendency towards sweeping, passionate expressiveness neatly offset by the zapping, piquant sonorities of the gypsy band…..and in both movements he brilliantly pulls off the difficult task of writing genuinely fast music.” Paul Conway, Independent
“Casken’s palette of instrumental timbres was both spicy and sensuous, and the music, even when the animation was suspended, had an inner propulsion and energy.” Geoffrey Norris, The Telegraph
THAT SUBTLE KNOT
“A double concerto that constantly engaged ears, hearts and minds as the soloists gradually tied a knot of their own, inspired by lines from a poem by John Donne.” Geoff Brown, The Times
“This is top-drawer music opening with a meditative viola solo, joined by ethereal violin and then sombre woodwinds. That Subtle Knot is a rich and compelling score, singularly impressive, satisfyingly intricate yet lucid.” Colin Anderson, Classical Source
VIOLIN CONCERTO
“Of the three movements the first is in a language that has about it the glimmer of Szymanowski though not quite as sultry. Its progress and curve proceeds in a way that feels instinctive rather than measured. There are a number of moments of instantly beautiful music which you know will spell attraction for the rest as one listens.” Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
“Casken has always had a gift for memorable, singing phrases but few of his works have been as melodically fertile as this.” Stephen Johnson, Independent