Richard Blackford: La Sagrada Familia Symphony & Babel
Lyrita

Richard Blackford: Songs of Nadia Anjuman
Nimbus Alliance

While the combination of the Gaudí-inspired La Sagrada Familia Symphony and cantata Babel provides a thorough account of composer Richard Blackford's artistry, an even more fulfilling portrait forms when the song cycle Songs of Nadia Anjuman is added. The works have been issued as two separate releases, but in fact all three could have been collected onto an eighty-two-minute disc. Listening to them in their issued formats is in no way dissatisfying, however: the EP length of the song set helps focus the attention, and the hour-long duration of the other offers a more than engrossing presentation. That said, the listener is best advised to experience the three as a whole in order to acquire the fullest appreciation of Blackford's material.

The resources for the symphony and cantata are naturally larger than those used for the song cycle, it being a comparatively more intimate affair. Whereas Blackford conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in the performance of the three-part La Sagrada Familia Symphony, David Hill guides the Ikon Singers and Ensemble through their paces on the towering Babel. Songs of Nadia Anjuman, on the other hand, couples soprano Elizabeth Watts with the Britten Sinfonia and leader Marcus Barcham Stevens. Blackford's bio reveals him to be a man of multiple academic and professional accomplishments. Following studies at London's Royal College of Music and in Italy (with Hans Werner Henze), he earned his Doctorate at Bristol University. In addition to creating operas, ballets, and works for orchestra, chorus and chamber ensembles, he's composed more than 200 film and television scores, seen his music appear on an abundance of labels, and been the recipient of a number of distinguished awards. As rich a sampling as the three works provide, they're but parts of a considerably larger picture.

Titled after Antoni Gaudí's mesmerizing architectural structure, La Sagrada Familia Symphony represents Blackford's attempt to render into sound the visual splendour of the temple, its impact bolstered by the light streaming through its stained glass windows. In structuring the work, he fashioned the movements in accordance with the building's three facades, Nativity, Passion, and Glory, each, he says, “a visual world unto itself, stylistically apart yet united by Gaudí's grandiose vision.” Consistent with images of Biblical figures, saints, musicians, animals, and nature that dot the “Nativity” facade, the dramatic, sonata-styled movement exudes affirmation, hope, and celebration. That tone's established by glorious trumpet fanfares that punctuate the movement and complemented by pastoral tone painting generated by woodwinds, harp, and oft-sweeping strings. In keeping with a title alluding to struggle, “Passion” is marked by grief and turmoil, the musical tone complementary to the drama of Christ's Passion. An arresting six-note figure catches the ear, as do ominous string glissandos, muted horns, and whip lashes that reinforce the impression of instability and violence. An anguished episode evokes the crucifixion of Jesus, after which the music accelerates to bring the movement to a feverish close. “Gloria,” by comparison, expresses time-suspending awe and majesty in its opening horn solo and the swirling orchestral textures and lyrical plainsong melody that follow. As La Sagrada Familia Symphony reaches its climactic end, the conclusion's drawn that it deserves a place on any of today's symphony concert stages and would be rapturously received were it so presented.

Commissioned by the Camden Choir for its fiftieth anniversary, Babel was first performed by the ensemble under the composer's direction in March 2022. In creating the thirty-seven-minute work, Blackford first broadened his familiarity with the Babel story as described in The Bible by consulting other sources, which prompted his decision to augment the Babel story with Noah's flood. Structurally, the work devotes the first part to the latter, the second part to the former, and its epilogue to the completion of the Noah saga. Blackford chose to split the work in this manner to avoid concluding it with the destruction of the Tower of Babel (“He sent a mighty wind against the tower / He overthrew the tower upon the earth”) and instead end it on a hopeful note with God's promise, “While earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall never cease.” Those words, delivered contrapuntally by the choir and soloists, in turn lead into the hymn, “Praise My Soul the King of Heaven,” the melody of which surfaces during the closing section of the opening part.

While the vocal resources for the performance—a twenty-member chorus and three soloists, soprano Rebecca Bottone, tenor Alessandro Fisher, and baritone Stephen Gadd—are plentiful, instrumentally they're modest, with only two pianists, an organist, and three percussionists deployed. The work's already arresting character is enhanced by Blackford's decision to not simply alternate between chorus and soloists but to instead combine them in places (see the blending of the tenor with the chorus in the first part's “God gave the signal and it began to rain” episode) as well as feature the soloists together as vocal conduits for God. The insertion of solo passages into the design also creates welcome contrast between the robust choral sections and the less declamatory solo parts. Three interludes—for the storm and flood, the building of the tower, and its destruction—add evocative instrumental interjections to the design. There are moments of disarming beauty, from the gentle chorus that follows the first interlude and the soprano's luminous rendering of the “Do not fear the largeness of the showers” text. Also memorable are Gadd's stentorian delivery during the second part's lumbering “Now Nimrod, the mighty warrior” section and the rhapsodic vocal swells that lead into the exultant "Praise My Soul the King of Heaven.”

A quite different example of Blackford's writing for voice is his musical treatment of texts by Afghan poet Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005). It's fitting that the first of the five is titled “Turmoil” when her days were permeated by it. Under the Taliban's rule, women's freedoms were greatly reduced, including educational opportunities. In her case that meant literature sessions with Herat professors practiced under the guise of sewing lessons; had the activity been uncovered, she could have been imprisoned or put to death. Even though the Taliban regime ended when she was twenty-one, threats of another kind emerged when, after marrying into a family who believed that as a woman her writing brought disgrace upon them, she died at the age of twenty-five from a beating by her husband. Responding to a Britten Sinfonia commission, Blackford selected poems that reflect the emotional highs and lows Anjuman experienced during her criminally abbreviated life, anguish, anger, and despair but also love, hope, and appreciation. The songs reflect an acute and sensitive tailoring of the music to the poet's words, the result lyrical, poignant expressions that seamlessly marry music and text. Recorded live at The Barbican in London last October, the performances are elevated by the nuanced readings given them by acclaimed soprano Elizabeth Watts and the Britten Sinfonia.

February 2024