In May, Jonny Greenwood's largest orchestral work to date, Doghouse, was the centrepiece of one of New York's most happening new music strands, The Wordless Music Series. To a packed and expectant house, Greenwood's music garnered acclaim from the US press and had been uploaded to YouTube within hours:
'… the players gave Mr. Greenwood’s piece a gripping, nuanced performance. Mr. Greenwood has said in interviews that he became fascinated with new music as a teenage violist in his school orchestra, and he has produced several compelling orchestral works since 2004, including the score for the film “There Will Be Blood” in 2007. “Doghouse” — parts of which turn up in another film score, “Norwegian Wood” — is a free fantasy in five connected movements, commissioned by the BBC Concert Orchestra.In a program note, Mr. Greenwood writes that he imagined his piece as a ramble through the faded scores of forgotten light music works and jingles in the BBC ensemble’s archives. That description shortchanges the piece, though it explains the rapid morphing — from lively modal passages to stretches of sustained string writing or pounding percussion and brass figures — that is among its principal charms. But the qualities that make the nearly 30-minute piece so consistently involving are its insistent drive and Mr. Greenwood’s intuitive use of dissonance and resolution.The New York Times (Allan Kozinn), 22 May 2011
'… a formidable piece in an individual style.'The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross), May 2011
'… a hive of buzzing textures that eventually collapses into an exciting blast of D… it's not at all hard to conceive of Greenwood as one of modern classical's foremost ambassadors…'VillageVoice.com (Seth Colter Walls), May 2011
Greenwood's next orchestral work, 48 Responses to Polymorphia, is premiered in Wroclaw (Poland) on 8 September as part of the European Culture Congress, whilst his Norwegian Wood Suite launches at the BBC Proms on 12 August.