Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M.C.B. Variation V (2019)
for orchestra
Duration: 2 min.
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins
Performance material available from Boosey & Hawkes
CD Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M.C.B.
darauf ‚Variation V’
BBC Scottisch Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins, BIS Records BIS-2747
Orchestration:
3(III=picc), 3, 3(III=bcl), 3-4, 3, 3, 1-timp, perc(3):I=vib/lg cym; II=lg cym/BD/SD/cowbell; III=med cym/med tom-tom, harp, strings
Reviews
February 5, 2020, by 5:4 in Festivals, Premieres
"A week ago, a new work by no fewer than 14 composers was premiered at the Proms. Conceived by conductor Martyn Brabbins as a 60th birthday present to himself, the work is inspired by and inspired by the structure and character of Elgar's Enigma Variations. For this new work, Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M. C. B., Brabbins chose a theme (the origin of which is kept secret) as the basis for fourteen variations ....
Iris ter Schiphorst brilliantly renders the main theme in a way that is both sweet and menacing, making its character feel wonderfully contradictory, enhanced by the restraint shown by the rest of the orchestra."
Jill Barlow - St Albans, Aug 18 2019
"There's not enough space to describe all 14 variations in detail, but they all mesmerised listening.... I was particularly fascinated by Variation 5 (Iris ter Schiphorst), which uses 2 themes contrapuntally."
CLASSICAL AND OPERA REVIEWS by Barry Creasy, published: 15 Aug 2019 in Reviews
"...Iris ter Schiphorst gave us the solid 'boomph' of a big machine contrasting with ethereal string sounds in the fifth variation."