A brighter shade of blue
Brighter than Blue Matthew Marshall (guitar)
…an elegant new CD from Rattle
Brighter than Blue is an elegant new CD perfect for summertime listening. Guitarist Matthew Marshall features chamber music with guitar by three New Zealand composers, the album’s title referring to a line in Alistair Campbell’s poem The Fall:“I had been painting the blue sky a brighter blue”.
Campbell and his wife, poet Meg Campbell, had a long and loving marriage that was also storm-tossed by infidelity and mental illness. A year after Meg's death in 2007 their joint collection It's love, isn't it? The Love Poems was published, pairs of poems chronicling their turbulent life together. A few years ago Marshall invited composer Philip Norman to set some of these poems for narration and guitar.
Norman selected fifteen for his theatrical composition It's love, isn't it?, recited on this recording by two of New Zealand’s venerable performing artists, Sir Jon Trimmer and Dame Kate Harcourt. Each poem is followed by a short guitar piece played by Marshall with thoughtful tenderness. Like his six tiny Tense Melodies for flute and guitar that open the album, Norman’s miniatures are well-crafted incidental music but it is the poetry itself that carries the emotional and metaphorical weight of the work. The Campbells’ words express profound and painful feelings through anguished outbursts or wryly guarded regret and the gentle romantic guitar responses seem a little pallid in comparison.
Guitarist Matthew Marshall: superb in accompaniment and subtle in melodious centre stage
Photo credit: Catherine Hines
All works on the CD are premiere recordings, including Kenneth Young’s Suite for violin and guitar composed over forty years ago. His clever sleight of hand has the different timbres and attacks of the instruments slipping in and out of the musical foreground. Marshall is superb in accompaniment and subtle when in melodious centre stage. Tessa Petersen’s slightly acidic violin tone works well for the sometimes wonky tonality of the piece and her improvisatory lines are always skilfully under-pinned by flexible guitar.
The whole album is distinguished by the fine musicianship of Marshall and his collaborators. Norman’s Tense melodies feature attractive playing from flutist Carol Hohauser, while in the minor/modal shadows of Anthony Ritchie’s lovely and atmospheric Autumn Moods, cellist Heleen du Plessis brings a shapely singing approach to her nicely balanced duet with Marshall.
Brighter than Blue Matthew Marshall (guitar) is available to purchase from Rattle
This review was first published in the NZ Listener January 2021