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- John McCabe
Esperanza (2010)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
Programme Note
Esperanza is named after Camp Esperanza (Camp Hope), the location of the mission to rescue the thirty‐three miners trapped underground for seventy days in 2010 at the San José Mine in Chile, a rescue that was televised live and was one of the most moving, and inspiring, things I have ever seen. By the most extraordinary coincidence, I had already done a good deal of sketching for this organ piece before this all happened and had determined on a “darkness‐tolight” kind of piece – so the coincidence, as well as my feelings of elation, were both too strong to ignore.
The piece pursues a course from a fairly knotty slow beginning (heralded by a few chords that recur at the very end), full of rising themes (another coincidence – the material had already been sketched before the miners were trapped underground), and reaching a loud climax, the quick, toccata‐like second section bursting vigorously out of the tension which is created at the beginning of the work.
The piece pursues a course from a fairly knotty slow beginning (heralded by a few chords that recur at the very end), full of rising themes (another coincidence – the material had already been sketched before the miners were trapped underground), and reaching a loud climax, the quick, toccata‐like second section bursting vigorously out of the tension which is created at the beginning of the work.
Scores
Score Sample
Reviews
Esperanza was commissioned for the 2011 St Albans International Organ Festival. Named after Camp Esperanza (Hope), the site of the mission to rescue the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 70 days, it is a substantial work of around eight minutes. McCabe confesses to having been deeply moved and inspired by the rescue and planned the piece as a journey ‘from darkness to light’. The thick, meditative texture of the opening gives way to tremors of optimism flowering briefly in a fanfare section for solo reed, reigned in, then released in a final ecstatic toccata. Though most of McCabe’s organ music dates from the 1960s, many of his trademarks (complex polyphony, jagged chains of parallel chords, sharp harmonies) are instantly recognizable: he remains one of this country’s most thoughtful, consistent and excellent composers in any medium. Highly recommended.
1st December 2011
Discography
Le Poisson Magique: Organ works by John McCabe
- LabelResonus
- Catalogue NumberRES10144
- SoloistTom Winpenny, organ
- Released29th March 2019