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Receiving its premiere, Headlong, by Andrew Ford . . . progressed in its eight-minute span from an opening where the musical ideas were scattered around the orchestra, diffuse and ungraspable, through a warmer, more collected slow section to a close of increasing resolve, ending on a blazing major chord. In terms of its overall shape it reminded me of Sibelius's last symphony, where things progress with teleological inevitability towards an emphatic point. As with much of Ford's recent music, the scoring was assured, colourful and subtle. Peter McCallum, The Sydney Morning Herald Ford says that the work is concerned with lyricism; it has an unstoppable melodic line running through it . . . The musical line fizzes and zigzags around the orchestra, as Ford imaginatively employs sudden dynamic changes and striking colouristic juxtapositions. Murray Black, The Australian
Oma kodu Estonia has a truly global musical identity and a population about the size of the Sydney North Shore (about 1.3 million). Andrew Ford's Oma kodu for clarinet and string quartet tapped into that identity with a haunting meditation on a folk song from the Setu region, a culture with a nine-millennia history. Ford fragmented and isolated the song's ideas, laying them out in the opening section almost note by note, like precious garments being taken from a chest - a single note, an ornament, an interval of a fifth, a haunting phrase. It is not his style to preserve old melodies in aspic, but in this piece there was only one point where the harmonies were allowed to became smeared, creating an edgy moment and, in the modern world, perhaps a moment of reality. Ford has a capacity to explore old traditions and bring out their simplicity and interest as creative objects without getting unduly sentimental or over-reverent. Peter McCallum,The Sydney Morning Herald A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard (String Quartet No 2) Andrew Ford's A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard was a perfect opener. His writing for strings is confident and even comforting but what stood out, for me, was the deft sense of drama. The music is the story, and a thrilling one it is - full of character and a good dose of suspense. This is a really useful piece for the new ensemble. Harriet Cunningham, The Sydney Morning Herald Since A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard was to be the first piece played in public by the [Grainger Quartet], Ford wanted to give the opening flourishes an air of mystery, and he succeeded. The rest of this terse work was an inventive, attractive mix of complex textures and vibrant rhythms, and the quartet's brilliantly sustained, slightly abrasive harmonics in the ghostly galliard brought the piece to a haunting, unsettling close. Murray Black, The Australian A fluid construct, it lived up to its [title] . . . and communicated a brand of fretful frivolity, the dancing restrained from outright abandonment but with a warm suggestiveness that sustained the pervading atmosphere of celebration. Clive O’Connell, The Age Snatches of Old Lauds Snatches of Old Lauds takes its title from a description of Ophelia's last moments of sadly deranged singing but is essentially a piece of bagpipe music for bass clarinet (Catherine McCorkill) and string drone in which the leading instrument's heavy breathing and bitten-off accents (Scotch snaps) have a wonderfully ominous effect. Roger Covell, The Sydney Morning Herald Tales of the Supernatural This cycle of folk songs turned out to be a cleverly integrated work, with suitably spectral interludes linking imaginative settings coloured by propulsive ostinato rhythms, unsettling tremolos, throbbing pizzicatos and bagpipe-like droning . . . Edwards's voice was uniformly warm and subtly coloured. She appreciated the individual character of these haunting songs and her heartfelt singing was aided by the [Brodsky] quartet's sensitive, well-blended accompaniments. This is one of Ford's finest and most appealing compositions. Murray Black, The Australian
Fred Blanks, North Shore Times (Sydney)
Harriet Cunnigham, The Sydney Morning Herald Andrew Ford's new folksong cycle, Tales of the Supernatural, performed by soprano Jane Edwards with the Australian String Quartet, stood out strikingly. Beguilingly simple in melody but replete with wonderfully inventive string writing, it had one's ears sharply pricked throughout. Graham Strahle, The Australian
An die Musik Andrew Ford's An die Musik made an illustrious debut in the warmly welcoming ambience of Adelaide's St Peters Cathedral just two weeks before Christmas Day. Commissioners Carl Crossin and his Adelaide Chamber Singers gave their most recent gesture of confidence in Australian composers poll position, immediately after interval, in their 20th anniversary concert . . . The refinement and security of its premiere performance were tributes both to the composer's intrinsic understanding of how voices work and to the huge amount of very intense practice and study by the conductor and singers that went into its preparation . . . Ford's ear for a settable text sits alongside Britten's, and the poems by Australians David Malouf, Thomas Shapcott ('Brahms', a graceful musical as well as verbal tribute) and Gwen Harwood, plus one each from [Malay], Pueblo Indian and Finnish sources, morphed into songs as if taking the next step in their evolving lives. The music, although looking complex on the page, was wondrously easy to listen to, given that the complete text was printed in the programme. The perfect match between verbal and musical moods was a constant a delight; a tiny dig at Webern's sparseness, whimsy to match David Malouf's 'inner lives of pumpkins' and 'Bruckner coaxes the zucchinis', the all too topical Pueblo lines 'I heard the cry of an ancient people, "We who die await the dawn"' set with plangent emphasis. In the main an ensemble piece, An die Musik's occasional solos from Emma Horwood's exquisitely tuned and toned soprano sounded as though custom written. Elizabeth Silsbury, Opera-Opera
The Armed Man [A] limiting factor for many of the instruments in the "pots and pans" department is pitch, or lack of it - out goes melody as a compositional device. But, as Edwardes demonstrated in a world premiere performance of Andrew Ford's The Armed Man, rhythm, dynamics and textures can be equally satisfying. Ford's work, the dreaded drum-kit solo, cleverly avoided boom-tish cliches, concentrating instead on the dry menace of the snare drum, kicked along by a bass drum. It was a brilliant performance. Harriet Cunnigham, The Sydney Morning Herald The Crantock Gulls The Crantock Gulls, named after the small Cornish village, were prey to polymetre squawking seagulls according to Ford and if his music successfully conveys it – and I’ve not misunderstood it – it was also raining like crazy... The arresting tattoos are increasingly and uncomfortably fractious. Jonathan Woolf, Musicweb International The gulls are noisy, the sea is rough, the drumming drives hard. Glyn Pursglove, Musicweb International Learning to Howl Learning to Howl is rightly on the A-List of Australian music. . . The poems that make up the song cycle vary from Sappho through the work of Queen Elizabeth I to Ann Timoney Jenkin and Elizabeth Smart. With his flair and careful choices, Ford created a series of imaginative atmospheres for soprano, saxophone, clarinets, harp and percussion. Joel Crotty, The Age The title [Learning to Howl] comes from a passage in the novel Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by American author Lorrie Moore, in which the narrator describes how as a child she "wanted to make chords" with her voice, how she "wanted to howl". Starting with this image, Ford builds a picture of a life journey from childhood to old age. The rest of the lyrics are taken from disparate sources, including a Finnish folk song, an Emily Dickinson lyric, and a Christina Rossetti love poem. Such variety of textual material risks making the cycle disjointed, but the recurrence of fragments from Sappho provides a loose structure. Martin Ball, The Australian The Waltz Book Waltzes invite repetition of phrases; modernist 20th century styles shun them. Ford teased music of textural simplicity and gestural complexity from this paradox . . . Like Beethoven in his monumental set of variations of a waltz by Diabelli, Ford grouped his waltzes to make larger structural units . . . a set of five derived from a Finnish folk song builds up a progressively intriguing texture of drones, rattles and ornaments. Peter McCallum, The Sydney Morning Herald The [Stuart & Sons piano] was most impressive in Andrew Ford's The Waltz Book, 60 gems, all of them precious, all lasting just one minute and all titled for people and events close to the composer. The clarity and brilliance of the tone ensured that separate voices were heard distinctly and superclean damping let the light shine through Ford's purposeful rests. Stuart's big bass gave extra weight to the [five] 'Whole World' waltzes; 'Monsieur Satie Scratches His Head' satirised music's arch satirist; and 'Anni's Waltz' (for Mrs Ford) was a sweet mix of tenderness and exasperation. Complete, the witty, pithy, always entertaining and often very funny Waltz Book would make a lunch-hour concert on its own. Elizabeth Silsbury, The Advertiser It's easy to get bogged down by the gravity of classical music. The idea of an hour-long solo piano work, for example, made up of 60 fragments each a minute long with a coherent but elusive structure running through it is potentially daunting. But as it turns out, Andrew Ford's The Waltz Book is something of an antidote to serious concert music. The 60 waltzes - some fragmentary, some miniature symphonies - form an album of personal snapshots, full of humour and humanity . . . Ford's musings take us, like a series of Leunig cartoons, through the gamut of emotions, via gentle laughter, humdrum ho-hums and moments of real beauty. Harriet Cunningham, The Sydney Morning Herald The Waltz Book began the evening with a journey though extremes of emotion. Ian Munro once again proved the consummate pianist, artfully navigating the virtuosic work and managing to translate what was an intensely personal journey into an experience the audience could share. He moved easily from frenetic aggression to lilting calm. Elizabeth Bailes, Hobart Mercury [The Waltz Book is] delightfully inventive and resourceful . . . displaying a robust virtuosity. Stephen Pedersen, Halifax Chronicle Herald, Nova Scotia Vyacheslav Novikov played a selection of waltzes ranging from the simple and reflective to the sturdy and virtuosic. Ford's invention works. Continually new entities can be created from small individual parts. Juhani Koivisto, Kainuun Sanomat, Finland This music may sound simpler and more naive than it is; in fact it reflects back on itself like someone who looks at his image in a mirror, wondering who he is. Mikael Kosk, Hufvudstadsbladet, Finland Chamber Concerto No 4 The first movement [of Chamber Concerto No 4 taps] Ford's English roots with a Chacony, evoking Purcell and Britten. Starting with a simple minor cello chord, reminiscent of English lute music and quietly spreading to the rest of the ensemble, it slowly became more manic before a sudden return. The second movement (untitled except for its metronome speed) explored the grooves of more recent dance styles with unison melodies striding the full pitch range of the ensemble with attitudinal angularity. This movement also rose to a manic climax before ending quietly with a single plucked cello note which (rather like Liszt's piano sonata) says it all. Peter McCallum, The Sydney Morning Herald The elaborate Chamber Concerto No 4 for flute, clarinet, string quartet . . . makes use of strict composing techniques in its two movements, the first of which, 'Chacony', is full of atmosphere, as though inspired by the habit of contemplating immense - and, for us, exotic - natural landscapes. Fulvia Conter, Giornale di Brescia, Italy Tattoo Tattoo subverts, in part, the notion of the military tattoo with its pomp, circumstance and relentless drumming. Instead there is as much silence, initially, as there is sound: muffled drums individually lament (and fragment) the standard patterns of a military tattoo. It is a lyrical work, and the addition of four pianos, firstly using only the sustaining pedal to increase resonance, take on a melodic function as they outline the pitches of the drums. A fierce climax is dispersed by arpeggiated piano chords, and the tattoo fades imperceptibly into silence. This premiere performance warrants another . . . David Vance, The Sydney Morning Herald I was reminded of the inexpressible sadness I felt encountering a lone piper leading a funeral in Scotland. Murray Robertson, Bravo! The Unquiet Grave Andrew Ford has called his viola concerto The Unquiet Grave but it is not very unquiet, even for a grave. The work evokes a transparent world of soft reminiscences, which become clearer and calmer.
It is based on a folk song of the same name, fragments of which appear throughout and in full at the end in a beautiful passage, where the solo viola plays the tune, delicately ornamented against calmly descending lines from the strings. The idea is comparable to that used in Richard Strauss's late work Metamorphosen, where the funeral march from Beethoven's Third Symphony makes an unvarnished appearance at the end, but the effect taps more into English mysticism than the German soul. . . Peter McCallum, The Sydney Morning Herald The Unquiet Grave [is] a compact viola concerto in one movement. The piece takes its title from an English folk song, which Ford deconstructs note by note, phrase by phrase, in a series of quasi-variations. The theme is hinted at throughout, amid the dissonances and fleeting tonality, and something of its modal flavour lingers constantly in the background, like a ghostly presence. It is only in the final bars, though, that the viola states the theme in full. Although Ford's idiom is quite distinct, this “variations and, only then, theme” approach to an old song reminded me of another work for solo viola – Britten's Lachrymae on Dowland's galliard of the same name. An unconscious reference, perhaps? Ford makes fascinating use of harmonics to generate much of the disquieting atmosphere of The Unquiet Grave. Though the orchestral forces are small – a bare minimum compliment of strings and a skeleton staff of winds and brass – Ford employs a large battery of percussion instruments, asking his sole percussionist to flit from tubular bells to tam-tam, from vibraphone to crotales, from bass drum to marimba. Each percussion instrument is allowed to ring out, with the harmonics emerging from the percussion and from the harp taken up by the strings to produce an eerie mist of sound. Roger Benedict, the Sydney Symphony's principal viola, navigated the fragmented solo part with skill. His warm, dark tone suited the uneasy questioning of Ford's writing and his intense concentration was especially impressive in the hushed cadenza at the very end of the piece. It was the aural equivalent of watching a single guttering candle in a pitch black room. Only after this did the theme of the folk song emerge, a fragile statement, before the music was allowed to die on Benedict's bow. That is how the concert ended Tim Perry, MusicWeb International It was, however, not [James] MacMillan but Andrew Ford and Patricia Pollett who brought the house down at Sunday's Biennial finale, with the premiere of Ford's The Unquiet Grave for viola and chamber ensemble . . . Here was a work specifically tailored to the strengths of the performer. And Pollett's strengths were everywhere apparent, from the snarling opening motives, through the fantastic, ultra-soft tremblings of her cadenza, to the poignancy of the concluding English folk song, 'Cold blows the wind to my true love', which had inspired Ford's work. Ford's writing was throughout expressive, varied, subtle and supple: a beautifully crafted score. Malcolm Gillies, The Australian Icarus drowning Icarus drowning is an astonishingly hypnotic piece, the high tessitura of the strings melded to the high strains of the clarinet, the harp echoing Grecian antiquity, the whole suspending the mind in thought; a brilliant performance of a brilliant piece. David Alker, Musical Opinion [London] Icarus drowning, most strikingly of all, takes Brueghel's painting 'The Fall of Icarus' as a starting point (in which all that can be seen of him are his two feet disappearing into the water) and in music of extreme slowness and growing intensity charts his descent through the water, recalling his ascent and flight as it does so. The poetic coda, with distant gongs and bells, was suggested by the site of first performance . . . and sounds both final—it refers back to the opening of the violin piece [Like Icarus ascending]—and like a tolling lament. It is the most impressive piece in the [Icarus] cycle. Michael Oliver, Gramophone Dance Maze Encountering Dance Maze by Andrew Ford was certainly a highlight of the concert . . . His music is compelling on its own terms. Using some easily recalled melodic motifs, Ford creates a wonderful variety of vibrant music, brilliantly colored. Ford's conducting of his own music was a reminder that composers are underrated as performers. Mark Kanny, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The Great Memory . . . the important thing about Ford's critique of symphonic production is that he works from within traditional structures . . . His writing is uncompromisingly progressive, but the notation is perfectly standard, eschewing the minefields of new complexity manuscripts . . . [The Great Memory] is decidedly dense, full of tropes and ironic rhetorical moves. At the same time, it revels in the self-reflexive devices which are a feature of postmodern texts; listening to it is a bit like reading Eco. Yet notwithstanding this slight epistemological tension, the consequent symphonic effects are stunning both aurally and spatially. Martin Ball, siglo Memorial Andrew Ford’s Memorial refers to the handing back of ‘Uluru’ (Ayers Rock) to its traditional guardians (the [CD] booklet says ‘owners’, but that’s another debate). Ford wrestled with his reluctance to engage with Aboriginal culture, but ultimately, seeing Uluru’s physical presence as a kind of memorial, almost a cenotaph in the middle of Australia, expressed this partly as a lament, partly as a celebration of the strength and endurance of the Aboriginal people. The cello is treated with a delay which in fact makes it sound as if it is placed in a vast acoustic. The echoes come to us as if from the inside of caverns measureless to man, and to me very movingly express the loneliness and incredible hugeness of the Australian outback. Dominy Clements, Musicweb International
Casanova Confined The ingenuity of Ford's score [for Casanova Confined] owes much to the innate rhythmic flow of the unaffected text created by Morgan from Casanova's memoirs . . . This piece has everything a contemporary music theatre piece should have--a fabulous but credible story, a strictly modern and superbly crafted score with not a single superfluous word or note, or noise of any kind, and a performer of outstanding excellence. Elizabeth Silsbury, The Advertiser [Casanova Confined is a] tour de force, and one for regular revival I'd say. Tristram Cary, The Australian In somnia A major event . . . was the first performance of Andrew Ford's cantata for solo tenor, chorus and orchestra, In somnia: not a musical recipe for keeping listeners awake, as it might be if its title were printed as one word, but a work designed to draw its hearers into the world of sleep and dreams. The writing for strings, wind, piano, harp and percussion is ingeniously detailed, the word-setting sensitive, the score as a whole haunting in its recurring treatment of sleep, dreams and the life of amorous imagination. I look forward to hearing another performance . . . Roger Covell, The Sydney Morning Herald ... les débris d'un rêve
David Vance, The Sydney Morning Herald Ford is at his best in this kind of piece [. . . les débris d'un rêve], worrying away at obsessive patterns, exploring the potentialities of an instrument in minute detail; in this case strongly suggesting that the dream of the title had something to do with the motions of a hyperactive insect. Roger Covell, The Sydney Morning Herald Harbour Outstanding in the originality of its concept and the force of its realisation was Ford's Harbour, settings of collaborative poems by Margaret Morgan. By turns gritty, stringent, reassuring and threatening in words and music, Harbour, like home, is both sanctuary and grave. Elizabeth Silsbury, The Advertiser [In Harbour] the salient mood of a desire for solace in something like extinction came through well enough. To some passages of genuinely lyrical as well as declamatory vocal setting, Ford adds a striking array of textures and patterns for the strings: whiplashing successions of accents and attacks racing across the ensemble, complex and inventive accumulations of sonorities. Roger Covell, The Sydney Morning Herald The Laughter of Mermaids [The Laughter of Mermaids has a] diverse set of musical gestures, pitching in at many different rhetorical levels-party babble, poetic speech, conversation, laughter and varying degrees of musical delivery. Although the composer, in his program note, mentioned a quotation from Purcell's masterpiece 'When I am laid in earth' as a unifying element, for me unity was achieved through a rather satisfying sense of understatement (sometimes violated) and an elliptical sense of progression. Capitalising on his imaginative feel for language and gesture, it seemed to me one of Ford's most successful works to date. Peter McCallum, The Sydney Morning Herald Tuba mirum Ford sets the two [bass trombone] protagonists stalking each other with wonderful snorts and rumbles and swellings and contractions of dynamics; so baleful in their combined effect at times that they made Wagner's Fafner sound in comparison like a toy monster . . . Resourceful, varied and striking in its effect, Ford's Tuba Mirum is an outstanding achievement, a piece with a truly commanding presence. Roger Covell, The Sydney Morning Herald Chamber Concerto No 3: In constant flight Andrew Ford's Chamber Concerto [No.3] . . . has the right stuff to it. Will Crutchfield, The New York Times A Kumquat for John Keats In A Kumquat for John Keats, Andrew Ford has paid Lisa Moore . . . a tribute by including passages of such frightening difficulty that they seemed to verge upon the physically dangerous . . . Moore's performance of it was dazzling. Martin Long, The Australian Poe With an excellent libretto by Graham Devlin, Ford's Poe provided the most satisfying marriage of text, music, stagecraft and action . . . Poe is grand guignol, high camp and a jolly good time, like whirling along in the ghost train. Vincent Plush, Arts Illustrated, ABC Radio Boatsong [Boatsong] is of exceptionally high quality. The atmosphere created by the repeated marimba notes reached its climax in the alto saxophone's lament. The fascinating beauty of this work was justly reflected in the audience's loud applause. Gert van Veen, Het Parool Portraits [Portraits are] short, but fiercely demanding, decidedly interesting pieces. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, The Sunday Times Concerto for Orchestra Andrew Ford makes strong and memorable ideas. Stephen Walsh, The Observer [Ford's Concerto for Orchestra is] an effective and finely crafted addition to the repertory . . . [There is] no doubt of his command of the material; cohesive both in its overall design and in its smaller episodes, and uncommonly sure in its working out of larger gestures from complex textures. The final climax, relentlessly prepared, had flashes of real Xenakis-like elemental energy. Dominic Gill, The Financial Times His Concerto for Orchestra is bursting with ideas. Martin Dreyer, The Musical Times
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