The raw intensity of a painting by Anselm Kiefer provided the starting point, and the title, for Davies’s Falling Angel for ensemble which receives its London premiere by the London Sinfonietta on 1 June at St John’s Smith Square, London.
The abrasive surfaces and thick, urgent layers of impasto which typify the German artist’s work are paralleled here with dense textures; 17 minutes of rough fanfares, a buzzing film of fluttertonguing horns and alto flute, and scraping, skirling dances from shrill winds. The music’s surface is spiky and perforated, qualities accentuated by the strings being strummed by plectrums and extensive percussion. ‘Kiefer’s painting is simultaneously very bright and very dark’, comments Davies, ‘and it was this that I hoped to capture in sound’.
More details about the London Sinfonietta concert, which also includes the world premiere of Tom Coult's Spirit of the Staircase and Francisco Coll's Liquid Symmetries can be found here