University of York Music Press

Rob Barnett of MusicWeb International writes:

"Solos and Duos for Strings and Piano - is made up of many short pieces. In fact there are 39 tracks across 72 minutes. These form six works. Gallery (Room 1) for solo violin is the banner under which eleven are collected. The music is approachable, moving between Vaughan Williams (Along the Field and The Lark Ascending) and Holst (Four Medieval Songs), spiky blues, melodious legato writing, the chitter of insect flight and papery wings, sour and abrasive attack and meditative-static moments. Room 2 is in much the same region with angularity, simple songs sepia tinted, chattering aggression and hesitancy. Cymbeline's Fort (tr. 18) has an airy atmosphere track added before a gentle tune is ushered in. ... Ballare Una Passacaglia Di Ombre ... for solo violin is in the same broad ballpark.

"As a break from the unadorned sound of the violin comes Hidden Ceremonies 1: Nine Fragments after Paintings by Brian Graham for solo piano. Harrison here introduces us to sepulchral muffled bells, slow moving and with long silences between single notes, nervy, fast, ruthless episodes, warm emotionality yet with complex dissonances, the stern and the taciturn, clinking railroad rhythms and a final piece (After Antler Music) in which Conlon Nancarrow might well be meeting Scott Joplin. TheThree Dances for Diana Nemorensis are for solo viola. Here Harrison's interest in the ancient world surfaces: Diana charts stuttering unconfident progress, Hecate is suitably creepy with angular virtuosity while the final Selene feels like a tentative journey through some unknown world. We end with the seven movements that make up ... under the circle of the moon ... Mansions I-VII for two violins. Here harsh discords are mixed with steely dissonance, the violins seem to emulate electronic effects in the first piece. Other sections adopt broken linkages or are articulated in a way that will require much more listening from me before I can make out the nexus. In The Thousand Songs of Thebes there's more legato which smoothes progress but again the journey takes the listener into distant kingdoms. Albrecht Dürer Self-portrait 1500 AD - The Frankfurt Zoll is more humane and as a prize there's a singular melody which has an archaic ecclesiastical caste."

The full review can be read here.