Knehans: Unfinished Earth Gareth Davies, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra & Mikel Toms

• Douglas Knehans (b. 1957): Tempest:
• 1 Tempest: I. Ostro 07:03
• 2 Tempest: II. Mistral... Funerailles 06:49
• 3 Tempest: III. Etesian 06:49
• Unfinished Earth:
• 4 Unfinished Earth: I. Tempering 12:06
• 5 Unfinished Earth: II. Eternal Ocean 11:55
• 6 Unfinished Earth: III. Tearing Drift 08:13
• Total Runtime 52:55

Info zu Knehans: Unfinished Earth

These award-winning works are driven: romantic yet thorny, expressive with edge, concisely expansive with high-wire drama and keening melodies pouring emotion into your heart. A brilliant flute concerto—Tempest—with virtuoso soloist Gareth Davies, principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra. A dense, passionate and personal three movement orchestral work—Unfinished Earth—teeming with heavy emotional edge and tenuous line. Reminiscent of Lutosławski, Stravinsky and Mahler, this is powerful, contemporary music from a new individual voice. Brilliant and exacting performances by the Brno Philharmonic and conductor Mikel Toms.

"The slow movement titled Mistral ... Funérailles of the Concerto for Flute and Orchestra "Tempest" by composer Douglas Knehans is what constantly draws me back, again and again, for yet another listen. Its main impetus, based on a descending two-note motif, is profoundly expressive and deeply moving. It evokes glimpses of shrouded memories from desolate corners of the past, and of times and places obscured by time. The slow and brumal orchestral undercurrent, like the wind it suggests, carries the flute along on the journey to its remote destination. This movement stays with you long after audition. It is bookended by two outer movements that very rarely allow Gareth Davies, principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra, to come up for air. They are bustling with activity and at times demand the highest degree of speed and virtuosity from the flautist, but Davies shrugs off even the most demanding leaps and runs. I pity the poor brass section players who sometimes have to echo the flute part. In the booklet notes, the value or merit of the "concerto" within today's music are put into question. With a potent and compelling example like this work, Douglas Knehans certainly puts any doubts to the concerto form's stance to rest. Something every flute player out there needs to hear.

The symphonic work titled Unfinished Earth, which deals with the subject of this planet's formation and evolution through the clout of colossal forces, which acts as a metaphor about the forces behind the human race's powerful shifts, certainly well reflects this within the music. The first movement's relentless battering and pummeling (similar to the end of the Shostakovich 5th) and the final movement's savagery - I've not heard a coda of such brutal ferocity in a while - well attest to the work's subject matter." (Jean-Yves Duperron)

Knehans’ music is about immediacy, drama, power, playfulness, architecture, harmonic structure, melodic expressiveness and more importantly depth and dimension. His music is about both love and life and a number of important critics see it that way too when they say his music “… tells an exciting story, ever- intensifying in color, thematic ideas, texture and tempo.” (The Washington Post)

Gareth Davies, flute
Brno Philharmonic Orchestra
Mikel Toms, conductor

Gareth Davies
was born in 1971 and began learning the flute at the age of ten. He studied at the Junior Department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and remained there through to graduation. He made a highly acclaimed London recital debut in the Park Lane series at the Purcell Room, after which he was appointed principal flute of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the age of 23, the youngest principal player in the orchestra. After five years with the orchestra, he left Bournemouth to take up the positions of principal flute with the London Symphony Orchestra and Professor of flute at the Royal College of Music.

Booklet für Knehans: Unfinished Earth