World premiere recording of Turnage's "A Constant Obsession" released today

A disc of Mark-Anthony Turnage world premiere recordings is released on Resonus Classics today, January 2nd, 2012. Richard took part in the recording of the disc's title work, "A Constant Obsession" for tenor and octet with Chamber Domaine. Turnage was present, overseeing the project, throughout the day of recording in October 2011 at St. Augustine's Church, Kilburn, London.

The other musicians performing the work were Nicky Spence (tenor), David Juritz (violin), Nick Barr (viola), Gabriella Dall'Olio (harp), Roger Montgomery (horn), Neyire Ashworth (clarinet/bass clarinet), Ruth Bolister (oboe/cor anglais), Anna Wolstenholme (flute/alto flute), Thomas Kemp (conductor). The producer was Adam Binks.

About "A Constant Obsession" [Source: Boosey.com]

The work was commissioned by the Wigmore Hall for Mark Padmore and the Nash Ensemble, and was composed in 2007.

The 'constant obsession' of the title is love, and Turnage has selected five English writers from different periods who collectively chart love's course from its first anticipation, through realisation and setback, to love beyond the grave.

Following a short prologue, the songs are; Keats's Bright Star, Hardy's A Thunderstorm in Town (A Reminiscence), Edward Thomas's No one so much as you, Robert Graves's Counting the Beats and Tennyson's Come not, when I am dead which provides a closing threnody to the work as a whole.