Mark Anthony Turnage, who celebrates his 50th birthday this summer, composed On Opened Ground for one of the world's most celebrated viola soloists, Yuri Bashmet, and the Cleveland Orchestra. The title pays homage to Seamus Heaney whose collected poems were published under the tile Opened Ground in 1998. Throughout the work the opening motif, heard in the viola - a rapid gesture marked 'rough and aggressive' - undergoes various transformations in shape and character, becoming 'warm and intense' and finally 'muted and distant' at the end of the work.

English.

Emotions from intense anger to morbid despair are conveyed through this powerful vocal work depicting the viewpoints of poets from the Great War. . Mark-Anthony Turnage's 'The Torn Fields' sets the words of Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg and Charles Sorley. the latter two of whom were killed in the trenches. .Despite the dark nature of the work, it concludes with a symbol of humanity and hope, the music from the prologue returns with the poem Everyone Sang to creating a unified transcendence away from the fears and desolation of the torn fields.

One of the movements in Scorched (arrangements of seventeen tunes by John Scofield for jazz trio and orchestra) has a coda, which repeats a dense, two-bar tag which sounded like it could be developed. Snapshots starts off by revealing bits of each of the two bars (with episodes placed in-between). The full two bars of music are then revealed at the end of the piece. Snapshots is a tribute to Olly [Oliver Knussen] on his 50th birthday.
Mark-Anthony Turnage.

The work is based on a tune called The Nag written by the jazz guitarist/composer John Scofield, of whom I have long been a fan and with whom I worked closely when writing Blood on the Floor (Mark-Anthony Turnage)
'The grim frenzy, the waste and the futility of war are all embedded in Silent Cities' (The Times).

This short trio combines angular lines and troubling chromaticism to create a highly effective piece of mood music with an empty, eerie feel to it. A beautiful and poignant work in memory of the cellist Christopher van Kampen, Turnage wrote this piece to mark the life of a great friend.

Commissioned by Washington Performing Arts Society for Leif Oves Andnes who gave the first performance. They are attractive and not too difficult, clearly stamped with Turnage`s lyrical style.

These are the latest example of the little pieces Turnage has always composed for friends and personal occasions. More intimate and tender than his orchestral statements, these small works are immediately accessible and rewarding to play for musicians at many levels.

'Kai' was written in memory of Kai Scheffler, principal cellist and a key member of the Ensemble Modern in Germany, who died tragically young in 1989. . The 18 minute work is in four continuous movements and leads the performers from an aggressive opening through many contrasting sections, often distinctly jazz influenced, to a slow final requiem. . The solo part is almost exclusively lyrical, stretching out long, mournful lines over an accompaniment which, in contrast, can be abrupt and claustrophobic. . This is a challenging and fantastically rewarding work which has established itself in the core of the contemporary cello repertoire.

'Kai' was written in memory of Kai Scheffler, principal cellist and a key member of the Ensemble Modern in Germany, who died tragically young in 1989. . The 18 minute work is in four continuous movements and leads the performers from an aggressive opening through many contrasting sections, often distinctly jazz influenced, to a slow final requiem. . The solo part is almost exclusively lyrical, stretching out long, mournful lines over an accompaniment which, in contrast, can be abrupt and claustrophobic. . This is a challenging and fantastically rewarding work which has established itself in the core of the contemporary cello repertoire.

Ergreifende, durchdringend lyrische Musik fur das Solospiel.