Exploring Spirit Rupert Marshall-Luck & Joseph Spooner

• Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934 - 2016): Sonata for Violin Alone, Op. 324:
• 1 Davies: Sonata for Violin Alone, Op. 324 22:58
• Richard Pantcheff (b. 1959): Fantasia on Yorkshire Folk Tunes, Op. 102:
• 2 Pantcheff: Fantasia on Yorkshire Folk Tunes, Op. 102 10:29
• Introduction & Allegro for Violin & Cello, Op. 97 No. 1:
• 3 Pantcheff: Introduction & Allegro for Violin & Cello, Op. 97 No. 1 11:03
• Introduction & Allegro for 2 Violins, Op. 97 No. 2:
• 4 Pantcheff: Introduction & Allegro for 2 Violins, Op. 97 No. 2 10:41
• Alan Gibbs (b. 1932): Enigma Duet for Violin & Cello:
• 5 Gibbs: Enigma Duet for Violin & Cello 05:49
• Total Runtime 01:01:00

Info for Exploring Spirit

"Exploring Spirit", is an album the central concept of which is the profoundly transformative effect of a questioning, explorative treatment of musical material and the sense of vividness and invigoration that such an approach can bring. The disc includes works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Richard Pantcheff and Alan Gibbs. The recording is dedicated to the memory of Robert Luck, father of the violinist on the disc, who died the day before the recording sessions began, and whose life personified the questing outlook that "Exploring Spirit" celebrates.

The album opens with Peter Maxwell Davies's "Sonata for Violin Alone", a set of 22 variations on a wide-ranging and richly contrasted theme, different variations each exploring certain aspects of the work's opening minutes. Rather than a "Theme and Variations" in the traditionally classical sense, it is a rhapsodic unfolding a kaleidoscopic expansion that, by means of profound and minute exploration, enrichens and enlivens the material, revealing subtleties and relationships not at first apparent. It is followed by the "Fantasia on Yorkshire Folk Tunes" by Richard Pantcheff, a work which uses six folk melodies as its basis, elaborating them in a way that presents them in a new context whilst maintaining their sense of location and identity. These are not simple harmonisations, but arrangements which emphasise the many different facets of the tunes and their words.

The same composer's "Introduction and Allegro" for violin and cello essentially concerns itself with the interaction of the two instruments' thematic material, the (occasional) finding of common ground, but also vigorous disagreement. As is the case with a number of this composer's works, there is a sense in which the instruments are each exploring the theme of loss or bereavement and seeking to reveal where there is mutual understanding. By contrast, the nature of the dialogue between the two instruments in Pantcheff's "Introduction and Allegro no.2" for two violins is rather different from that heard in the first: in this instance, the instruments are reaching out to each other to establish agreement: both are recalling past events or experiences, but here they find unity of purpose and finally a sense of mutual support.

Alan Gibbs's "Enigma Duet" for Violin and Cello forms a quirkier and more whimsical conclusion to the disc. Written to celebrate the fiftieth wedding anniversary of two close friends of the composer, it takes as its premise Nemorino's aria Una furtiva lagrima from Donzetti's L'elisir d'amore but cloaks it in a disguise of near-serialism. The instruments' playful exploration of this theme, the mischievous pleasure they take in transforming and punning on its intervals and contours, and the delight they take in contrasts of dynamic, tessitura and colour make this a wonderfully sparkling close to a recording that speaks of a special and unique quality of the human condition.

Rupert Marshall-Luck, violin
Joseph Spooner, cello

Rupert Marshall-Luck
Hailed by BBC Music Magazine for his “handsome tone and laser-like tuning”, and acclaimed by audiences and critics alike for the verve, commitment and intelligence of his performances, Rupert Marshall-Luck appears as soloist and recitalist at major festivals and venues throughout the UK as well as in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. His extensive discography includes many World Première recordings as well as conspectuses of the complete music for violin and piano of Herbert Howells and C. Hubert H. Parry; and his solo performances have been frequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3, ABC Classic FM (Australia), RTÉ (Ireland), SABC (South Africa), Radio Suisse Romande (Switzerland), and in Canada, France, New Zealand and the USA. His recordings have attracted glowing critical acclaim from the international musical press, including BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, International Record Review (“We have music of distinction and performances to match. A decisive view of how the structures must knit together and considerable mental stamina from both players are firmly implanted into the performances”), MusicWeb International and The Strad; a recent five-star review of Joseph Holbrooke’s F-major Sonata in the French music publication Classica stated “The perilous double-stopping passages are overcome by Rupert Marshall-Luck with an athletic ease; while his warm tone is marvellous in the elegiac lyricism of the slow movement”. A disc of John Pickard’s chamber music for Toccata Classics (TOCC 0150) was also praised by Fanfare in the USA, being highlighted as “a compact disc not to be missed”.

As well as his busy schedule as a soloist and chamber musician, Rupert is active as a writer and speaker on the performing aspects of music, and he has presented lecture-recitals, seminars and masterclasses at the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford; at Birmingham Conservatoire, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and the Royal Academy of Music; and at University College London. His radio broadcasts include several appearances on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and a programme for Radio 4’s series Tales from the Stave; and his article Volksmusik, Landschaften und Turbulenzen: Die Lieder und die Kammermusik von Vaughan Williams (Folktunes, Landscape and Turbulence: the Songs and Chamber Music of Vaughan Williams) was published in edition text + kritik (Richard Boorberg Verlag) in December 2018. His scholarly-critical edition of Elgar’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, op.82, was published in 2019 by G. Henle Verlag of Munich; this forms part of a series of editions for the publisher which together will comprise the complete violin music of Elgar.

Rupert plays a violin by Charles Jean Baptiste Collin-Mézin of 1899. Collin-Mézin won several medals and prizes for his instruments, and received accolades from many prominent violinists, including Joseph Joachim, some considering a Collin-Mézin violin to be equal to a Stradivari for flexibility of sound – indeed, he has been referred to as “the French Stradivari”. He uses a bow by Eugenio Praga, a highly-respected nineteenth-century Genoese maker who was appointed as a custodian of Paganini’s 1743 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ violin; and a newly-commissioned bow by the British archetier Timothy Richards.

Joseph Spooner
Spooner’s performances and recordings have garnered high praise from audiences and critics alike. This is recognition not just of the passion and beauty of his playing, but of his success in rediscovering works previously abandoned through ignorance and changing tastes. Yet Joseph’s repertoire encompasses also mainstream classical and contemporary works, facilitating an exceptionally broad and flexible approach to programming.

Joseph Spooner came to the cello indirectly, via a degree in Classics at Cambridge, and a doctorate in Greek papyrology at London and Florence universities. During subsequent postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music, he embraced traditional repertoire and developed a taste for contemporary and non-standard works. Since then, he has pursued a diverse career, principally as a soloist and chamber musician, and this work has taken him across the UK, from the Baltic to the Atlantic, and from the recording studio to concert platforms in Continental Europe, New York, Russia, Mexico and New Zealand. As a soloist, there have been performances of familiar and less familiar concertos (including Dvořák, Leighton, Korngold, Shostakovitch and Moeran); broadcasts from his recordings on BBC Radio 3 and Radio New Zealand; and recital series featuring the complete works for the cello by Bach, Beethoven, Bloch, and the Mighty Handful.

Joseph has worked extensively as a chamber musician; regular collaborators include David Owen Norris and Madeleine Mitchell. His work with contemporary-music ensembles (notably Continuum and New Music Players) has included performances at major festivals (among them Huddersfield), broadcasts (BBC Radio 3, Channel 4), several premieres, and recordings of works by Errollyn Wallen and Roger Smalley. Joseph’s deep delving into the cello repertoire has led to the rediscovery of unjustly neglected works. Audiences have greatly appreciated hearing this music, and critics have offered high praise for Joseph’s recordings, noting the initiative entailed and agreeing that these works – by composers as diverse as Alan Bush, Alexander Krein, Michael Balfe, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Edgar Bainton, Aaron Copland, George Dyson, and Percy Sherwood – were indeed worth rehabilitating.

Joseph was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2012, and in 2013 was made an honorary member of the International Felix Draeseke Society. He is proud to be the dedicatee of Alwynne Pritchard’s Danaides, Errollyn Wallen’s Spirit Symphony: Speed Dating for Two Orchestras, and Martin Read’s Troper Fragment. His instrument was made by Nicholas Vuillaume in c.1865

Booklet for Exploring Spirit