Composer: Robert Saxton
Performer: Clare Hammond
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0458
Release: 2018
Size: 859 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Chacony
02. Piano Sonata
Hortus Musicae, Book 1
03. No.1. Hortus Somniorum
04. No. 2. Hortus Temporis
05. No. 3. Hortus Cantus
06. No. 4. Hortus Infinitatis
07. No. 5. Saltatio Hortensis
Hortus Musicae, Book 2
08. No. 1. The Flowers Appear on the Earth
09. No. 2. Light on the Water Garden
10. No. 3. The Garden of Changing Perspective
11. No. 4. Beech Bank (à la recherche) …
12. No. 5. Light on the Hedgerows
13. No. 6. The Garden at Dusk
14. No. 7. Hortus Animae Alis Fugacis
15. Lullaby for Rosa
In its bell-like sonorities, clear textures and ritual manner, the piano music of Robert Saxton (born in London in 1953) suggests an almost oriental fascination with light and the way light refracts and diffracts – and yet it is audibly music written by an Englishman. In the two Books of Saxton’s Hortus Musicae in particular, this fascinating confluence generates a soundworld somewhere downstream from Takemitsu and Tippett, giving these gardens of music both a ceremonial dignity and sense of spring growth.