Following on from its US premiere at the Aspen Festival in July, Coll’s agile and brittle Liquid Symmetries for 15 players (2013) receives its UK Premiere on 1 June 2016 at St John’s Smith Square. Martyn Brabbins conducts the London Sinfonietta.
Whilst the instrumental line up of this 13-minute work is modelled after the Chamber Symphony of his close mentor Thomas Adès, the soundworld created is far spikier and more astringent. A number of virtuoso solo lines wind their way through the musical fabric – notably a jittery and gyrating muted trumpet solo and recurring, murmured viola statements. Surrealistic juxtapositions abound, no more so than in the work’s final movement, with its strange, cavernously empty unison passages and the lone, slightly droll, cowbell – hitherto unheard – that sets up a typically enigmatic conclusion.
More details about the London Sinfonietta concert, which also includes works by Tom Coult and Tansy Davies, can be found here