Boosey & Hawkes

Mark-Anthony Turnage: inspired by Led Zeppelin

(October 2009)

Two new ensemble works by Mark-Anthony Turnage forge links with the music of Led Zeppelin. Grazioso! for six players was commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and premiered in August by eighth blackbird. The composer writes that “the title refers to the first model of instrument played by Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page. Applied to the piece, it is ironic, as the music is not grazioso (graceful) at all. It is mostly aggressive and riff-based, using the extremes of register of the piccolo, bass clarinet and piano, and with a percussion set-up including a pedal bass drum, tom-toms and a large anvil.”

Out of Black Dust, inspired by Turnage’s friendship with Led Zeppelin’s bassist John Paul Jones, is scored for 10 brass instruments doubling percussion and was co-commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Barbican Centre. First performances took place in Berlin and Chicago this summer, with the Chicago Tribune describing the work as “very jazzy, very loud and great fun, with restless metres and insistent rhythms that suggest a Saturday-morning jam session at the conservatory with the doors thrown wide open”.

Turnage chamber premieres this summer have included Four Chants written for violinist Viviane Hagner and Five Processionals for a clarinet quartet led by pianist Lars Vogt. The composer’s next orchestral piece, Texan Tenebrae, is commissioned by the Canaries Festival for the London Philharmonic, and by the Royal Concertgebouw and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. First performances are scheduled in Turnage’s 50th birthday year, in Tenerife on
21 January 2010 and the Southbank Centre in London on 17 April.

> Further information on Work: Grazioso!

Photo: Philip Gatward

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