Hebrides Ensemble - Ursa Minor: Chamber Music by Stuart Macrae (2022) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. I am Prometheus
02. Dark Liquid
03. Ixion
04. cladonia bellidiflora
05. Tol-Pedn
06. Lento in memoriam Peter Maxwell Davies
07. Ursa Minor
08. fthinoporinos
09. Diversion (The room behind the room)
10. Parable



This compelling survey of music by the Scottish composer Stuart MacRae – a fifth installment in the acclaimed Hebrides Ensemble/Delphian Records series of composer portraits – focuses on works of the last decade while also reaching back to include two pieces from the composer’s mid-twenties.

Reflecting diverse inspirations from nature and myth, it also reveals underlying continuities: a preoccupation, in particular, with questions of scale and perspective. The ancient Greek hero Prometheus receives an unexpectedly intimate portrait, his human aspects to the fore – flawed yet sympathetic. MacRae’s perception of the natural world, meanwhile, extends from the microscopic scale of lichen to the vastness of the night sky, in which the medium of distance transmutes all turmoil into calm.

Hebrides Ensemble
Joshua Ellicott, tenor
Marcus Farnsworth, baritone
James Willshire, piano

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [Hi-Res]