Sunday Times
statuesque, and, as with all Connolly, organic. Connolly's manner is vividly gestural, beautifully coloured and compellingly fluid...
Album Description
The first CD dedicated to the music of Justin Connolly performed by Nicolas Hodges and others, all of whom are closely associated with the composer.
All the pieces are explorations of darkness, much as in the poem "Night Thoughts" by Edward Young (first pub. 1745). The Sonatina No.2 is in 9 parts, an ennead, like Young's poem. The Sonatina was almost given the same name until the composer recollected Copland having got there before him. Nocturnal is a set of sea-pictures in which the song of wind and wave is played out against a background of sea-sounds: the creaking of canvas and cordage, the mysterious calls of unseen birds. Tesserae F is another night-piece, whose subtitle, Domination in Black, comes from a poem by Wallace Stevens. While Scardanelli Dreams charts the motions of a great spirit, which, though affected by adversity and illness, is not dimmed, but rather illuminates the darkness in which it finds itself.