Debussy鈥檚 glittering 鈥榮ymphonic sketches鈥�, their fleeting swell and ebb, sunrise and storm here seem inexorably tied to a French lineage of voluptuous orchestral colour and musical portraiture of the natural world.
Wigglesworth鈥檚 reworking of his Aldeburgh commission for the Britten Centenary takes inspiration from the English Baroque, interspersing transcriptions of incidental music from Purcell鈥檚 forerunner Matthew Locke with his own shadowy distorted 鈥榙oubles鈥�. Shadows and echoes also abound in Rebecca Saunders鈥� arresting concerto, her trembling, hyperactive protagonist vividly, shockingly interrupted by torrents of orchestral sound before subsiding to a contemplative haunting stasis.
