Craig Armstrong is one of the world's most sought-after and respected composers and arrangers in the film and music industry. Starting off as house composer for the Tron Theatre Company in his native Glasgow, Craig Armstrong went on to compose and arrange music for some of the biggest names in music, including Madonna, U2 and Massive Attack. His emotionally-charged, highly-listenable music has graced films such as Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Ray, Love Actually, World Trade Center, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
Says Armstrong of the three compositions presented on the disc: "I wanted to find a direct language using tonality while still being firmly routed in the 21st century - a diffuse way of writing much like an abstract painting where the images are blurred. In these works, melodies are hidden and slowly revealed, and I have treated sonority and orchestration in much the same way that a painter deals with the subtle nuances of color."
The 3 works were conceived over the last 4 years, a period when Craig Armstrong was searching for a personal style of composition which reflected his musical influences, trying to reconcile his approach to the acoustic classical world with the techniques he had used in recording electronic music.
Immer (Violin Concerto No.1) was composed in 2007 for Clio Gould (today principal violin of the London Sinfonietta), and in the work, Armstrong creates a specific acoustic sonority with techniques found in contemporary music software, using slow loops that phase in and out with one another, creating a blurred tonality with the solo violin singing above the orchestra - a technique which also has its roots in early music (repetition, canons, fugues etc).
One Minute is a work comprised of 15 one-minute pieces for orchestra, where each minute is a self-contained piece. It was commissioned by the Horse Cross Trust for the opening of the new Concert Hall in Perth.
Memory Takes My Hand was a commission from the Glasgow City Council to write a new concert work for the reopening of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in October 2006. Craig Armstrong collaborated with the playwright Peter Arnott for the text, sung here by British soprano Lucy Crowe.
By BGM
