Melanie Pappenheim, Sophie Harris - Julian Marshall: Out of the Darkness (2009)

“Out of the Darkness” is a brand new secular cantata for mezzo-soprano, two cellos and eight voices, written by Julian Marshall. The inspiration for the piece is based on the poem “Aus dem Dunkel” (Out of the Darkness), by Gertrud Kolmar. Kolmar lived in Berlin for much of her life, but was transported to Auschwitz in 1943, where she perished. Her poetry is strikingly full of life – colour, vibrancy, deep sensation - and “Aus dem Dunkel”, is surely one of the most beautiful. Written in 1937 the poem evokes powerful dream like images of crumbling and decay - serving as an eerie foretelling of the imminent tidal wave of horror about to hit the world.

Also featured on this recording is another world première – a new piece by Gavin Bryars for mezzo-soprano, cello and keyboard. The Island Chapel was commissioned by the Tate Gallery St Ives in 1997, for performance in St. Nicholas Chapel, St. Ives.

Spiegel im Spiegel, whose title translates as “mirror in the mirror” was written in 1978, and was the last piece Pärt wrote before escaping Soviet rule to live in Europe. The listener is invited utterly to clear his or her mind of all extraneous and unnecessary noise and to focus completely on pure sonority without concerns of emotional trajectory or pictorial representation. Every note is perfectly placed, nothing is unnecessary, and the method – of adding one note at a time to the ‘cello’s alternately rising and falling line is plain to hear.

Julian Marshall has had a highly successful musical career, but it is composition that has been his consuming passion over time – now firmly at the centre of his creative life. Compositions include a broad range of music – from a Missa Brevis written when the composer was 17 (composed for and recorded by the Dartington Hall School choir); many jazz compositions for own bands (which include being played live, recorded and broadcast); many songs for above named bands; a film score for the Orion Pictures movie Old Enough; a millennium commission written for the Plymouth Symphony Orchestra and several school choirs entitled The Clock of the Long Now (written with a text by poet Rose Cook). His cantata Out of the Darkness was premiered in March 2009 and he has several works in progress.

The Schoolhouse 6 Ensemble is a collective of musicians brought together by Julian Marshall specifically to record and perform “Out of the Darkness” and future works written by him.