Ensemble Reza
The Barefaced Violas
CLAUDIO Contemporary CC6054-2
Unfoldings, the 10th volume of music by Barry Mills (b. 1949) contains five String Quartets, one String Quintet (an extra viola) and one Viola Quartet. The overall title Unfoldings, comes from the final Quartet on the CD. Dated to 1979, it is the earliest Quartet by Mills. Could the title also refer to the fact that many of the quartets tell a story in music that is graphically pictorial or even filmic?
The opening Quartet dated 2023 is his latest. It was composed for his wife who was seriously ill but happily recovered. She could once again enjoy the outdoors. Mills’s music often uses string tremolos or trills. According to the accompanying note, this music could represent birdsong, dappled woodland light or cloud movements. He writes free flowing melodies that suggest a hint of plainsong.
The third Quartet entitled Mountain Ash refers to a village of that name in South Wales. It once had a Phurnacite Coking Plant that blackened the landscape and made the people unwell. The first section of the Quartet describes the clean landscape before the Coking Plant. It uses an attractive Welsh folksong There is my Beloved. A second dissonant section describes the bad times before two movements refer to the recovery of the people in the new hospital, and finally the restoration of the clean landscape.
The first of three movements of the String Quintet is entitled Wakehurst Place. It pictures a peaceful branch of Kew Gardens, The second movement An Unquiet Night in Gaza – Lament graphically details the bombing of Gaza and the composer’s sadness at seeing the resulting devastation on television. In the final movement Children Meeting, he remembers seeing children of different races playing happily together. The movements taken together are like his exhortation on the subject.
The two Quartets dated 2011 and 2007 are like mirror images of seascapes.
The Viola Quartet is more abstract but full of colourful string explorations and startling expression. The final Quartet also has a similar effect in its opening movement but the short second movement Across Water has the descriptive power that was to become an important feature of the later music.
Review by Alan Cooper