Ryan Wigglesworth: Echo and Narcissus Claire Booth soprano ~ Pamela Helen Stephen mezzo-soprano Mark Padmore tenor ~Barnabás Kelemen violin RSVP VOICES ~ Hallé Ryan Wigglesworth conductor/piano NMC D213 • ‘Wigglesworth writes music stamped with iridescent hues, instrumental finesse, shapely ideas and a lyrical impulse that stays within reach even when textures turn prickly … [his] bright ear for glinting textures, his flair for taut motivic interplay, his conjuror’s ability to cast a spell.’ - The Times • Ryan Wigglesworth is Composer-in-Residence with English National Opera, for whom he is writing an opera for 2017. • Ryan Wigglesworth takes up his new position as the next Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé, in September 2015. • As conductor, Wigglesworth's recording of orchestral works by Harrison Birtwistle with the Hallé for NMC (NMC D156) won awards from Gramophone and BBC Music magazines. Ryan Wigglesworth, Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé, conducts his own orchestral works in this first full-length portrait album of his compositions.   The album includes the powerful Echo and Narcissus, whose premiere was one of the highlights of the 2014 Aldeburgh Festival.   Superbly performed by tenor Mark Padmore and mezzo Pamela Helen Stephen, with the enlarged female semi-chorus and the multi-talented Ryan Wigglesworth on piano, this piece sets Ted Hughes' text ‘Echo and Narcissus’ from his Tales from Ovid. The poem ‘Keep your eyes open’ by John Berryman is married with poems by Robert Browning, Egon Schiele and Arthur Rimbaud in the song cycle Augenlieder, written for and performed by soprano Claire Booth, with the Hallé.   The work receive the vocal prize at the 2010 British Composer Awards. Locke's Theatre was commissioned for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Aldeburgh Festival to celebrate Benjamin Britten's 100th birthday.   Aware of Britten's own revival and adoption of English music, Wigglesworth has drawn inspiration from Matthew Locke, the leading English stage composer in the period before Purcell.   Wigglesworth presents arrangements of three of Locke's movements, interspersed with his own musical responses. Other works on this disc are the Violin Concerto, performed by Hungarian violinist Barnabás Keleman and A First Book of Inventions for chamber orchestra.       Augenlieder   1. Eurydice to Orpheus       3'03   2. Visionen       5'44   3. Voyelles       1'59   4. Keep your eyes open       5'22       Claire Booth soprano • Hallé • Ryan Wigglesworth conductor   5. A First Book of Inventions       9'03       Hallé • Ryan Wigglesworth conductor   6. Echo and Narcissus: A Dramatic Cantata       16'16       Pamela Helen Stephen mezzo-soprano • Mark Padmore tenor       RSVP Voices • Ryan Wigglesworth piano       Violin Concerto   7. Largamente/Allegro movendo       5'10   8. Arioso: molto caimo       5'39   9. Allegro furioso       4'25       Barnabas Keleman violin • Hallé • Ryan Wigglesworth conductor       Locke's Theatre 10. The First Music      1'00 11. The First Music (double)      2'17 12. Rustic Music      1'17 13. Rustic Music (double)      3'37 14. Curtain Music      3'02 15. Curtain Music (double)      5'50       Hallé • Ryan Wigglesworth conductor       Total timing       74'37 NMC Recordings are distributed in Australia by Rockian Trading, P.O.Box 44, Briar Hill, Vic, 3088, Australia Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879