RELEASED FEBRUARY 2024
... the path above the dunes ...
chamber music by
Nicola LeFanu
Gemini:
|Ieana Ruhemann flutes, Catriona Scott clarinets, Joby Burgess and Elsa Bradley percussion,
Aleksander Szram piano, Caroline Balding violin, Sophie Harris cello, Ian Mitchell conductor
with soprano Clara Barbier Serrano
​​​​​Gemini is delighted to have recorded this CD of chamber music by Nicola, a friend and colleague for over forty years. The works span almost fifty years of composing. The recording is released on the DivineArt/Métier label (Métier MEX77112) a regular partner of the ensemble. It is released in the year that marks the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of Gemini.
​​... The performances and the recording are of the highest quality and the composer must have been thrilled. If you don’t know LeFanu’s music this would be a good place to begin.
British Music Society
Superbly played and sung, this is music to celebrate and explore. Fiona Maddox The Observer
.four works spanning some 46 years of her creativity, all heard in performances from one of the UK’s most prominent contemporary music groups, which will celebrate its half-century this year. ... Gemini’s playing is admirable individually and collectively throughout, abetted by sound of unsparing focus. A Gramophone Disc of the Month
... Herewith, music that lives in its own fleeting dimensions, and which is superbly recorded in glowing details. Quarterly Review
David Lumsdaine: A tree telling of Orpheus Metier, msv 28519 *
“...passages of simple and beautiful calm over hazy harmonies...the performers enter Lumsdaine’s musical world with skill and enthusiasm” MusicWeb
Philip Grange: Darkness Visible Metier MSV CD92083
Gramophone Magazine Critics’ Choice as CD of the Year
“…one of the most distinctive minds of his generation…Finely prepared performances from Gemini…” The Gramophone
Philip Grange: Dark Labyrinths Black Box BBM1038 **
Gramophone Magazine Critics’ Choice as CD of the Year
Homage chamber music by Philip Grange MSV28591
The third disc Gemini has recorded of music by Grange (see below) marking not only his 60th birthday, but also a relationship stretching back almost 30 years.
Gemini’s playing of these four remarkable works is first-class. I think that special honours ought to go to Sophie Harris for her extraordinary performance of the Elegy for solo cello.
John France (MusicWeb International
This disc arose from a prize in the Prudential Awards, which provided initial funding to record three major but neglected works: Cyril Scott's Clarinet Quintet; Howard Skempton's Gemini Dances for ensemble - a bonus track; and Rebecca Clarke's Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale for clarinet and viola, together with more recent pieces by Sadie Harrison (for clarinet, viola, narrators and clap sticks), Nicola LeFanu (Songs without Words for clarinet and string trio), Howard Skempton's Lullaby for cello and clarinet, and jazz legend Tony Coe's miniature tone poem for clarinet and string quartet. This is not a clarinet feature disc however, but a programme of fine works involving that instrument ‘in the mix’.
Bass Clarinet and Friends - a miscellany MSV28579
There is much variety among the styles and instrumentation of these wonderfully played works such that the listener will be held rapt through the duration of this program. Lovers of well-written chamber music in varying contemporary styles will definitely not want to miss this set.
David DeBoor Canfield (Fanfare)
​
This highly-imaginative programme explores a diverse range of music: from the romantic certainties of York Bowen’s remarkable Phantasy Quintet to Jonathan Harvey’s ebullient The Riot, by way of the Latin-infused sounds of Dave Smith’s Aragonesca. It is thoroughly enjoyable from the first track to the last.
John France (MusicWeb International)
Stephen Goss: The Garden of Cosmic Speculation Cadenza CACD0604 *
…inspired by Charles Jenck’s Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Goss’s "The Garden of Cosmic Speculation"
was first performed in…2005. In Jenck’s Garden, a series of visual metaphors are used to enable the visitor
to contemplate certain fundamental aspects of the universe. But the garden is not dull; it is visually
stimulating and full of a sense of fun and excitement. Goss’s piece similarly mixes genres and styles,
seriousness and fun. Quotes, references and ciphers litter the score, sometimes these are obvious and
sometimes less so. This is a piece that responds to repeated listening. It is a tribute to Goss’s skill and the
skill of the players that the results sound natural and obvious, never overly contrived. This is chamber music
of rare skill and played by a very fine ensemble. Gemini commissioned the piece as a companion to
Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Goss makes references to Messiaen’s harmonies and textures.
[his] language is… extremely expressive and his textures are frequently very open…definitely a piece
which can be sampled by those who shy away from contemporary music. Music Web
Peter Maxwell Davies: Ave Maris Stella Metier/Divine Art MSV28503
Sunday Times Contemporary CD of the Year
“Ave Maris Stella (1975) reaffirms itself as a tour de force of ear-gripping virtuosity…Absolutely superb.’’ Malcolm Hayes, BBC Music Magazine
​
Fiercely difficult to play though the music is – and it is meant to be unconducted, like true chamber music – it
comes over here with an idiomatic ease and brilliance that make the work seem truly classical.
Paul Driver, Sunday Times
​
What a little gem of a disc this is, making up in density (and intensity!) what it lacks in length. Sir Peter
Maxwell Davies has written some fine chamber music in recent times...two of the four works here go back to
the mid-1970s – Ave Maris Stella and Psalm 124, Star-Folded and Economies of Scale date from 2000 and
2002 respectively. They are all given fine, committed performances by the chamber ensemble Gemini under
its director and clarinettist Ian Mitchell.
As if the quality of the music and the performances weren’t enough, the listener is also provided with a
superb set of booklet notes by the University of Surrey’s Christopher Mark. International Record Review
Lumsdaine/LeFanu: Mandala 3
Metier/Divine Art msv28565
[Lumsdaine's Mandala 3] is powerful music, an intense and absorbing work which receives virtuosic performances from Aleksander Szram and members of the Gemini ensemble.
Loud Mouth (AustralianArts Trust)
This is important music by two master composers beautifully performed by their frequent collaborators. Recommended.
Caron Cooman Fanfare (USA)​
LeFanu's Song for Peter (1983) for soprano, clarinet and cello is by turns fierce and meditative ... performed here with particular poise and fire by Sarah Leonard..... Lumsdaine's Mandala 3 ... proves a gloriously strange and moving piece. A 'meditation' on the final chorus of the St Matthew Passion, the work weaves bold new lines around transcribed excerpts of Bach's score to create an affecting and mysterious piece a fine performance to compete this intriguing and enlightening disc. Kate Wakeling BBC Music
John White: Fashion Music (our tribute to Tchaikovsky Year '93) CD Austrian label LondonHall.docu3.
BBC Music Magazine one of the Top Forty CDs of the Year
Not currently available
Peter Maxwell Davies:
Miss Donnithorne's Maggot DVD ARC02001-2
Recorded live at Orkney's St Magnus Festival, Wells' account proves this 1994 theatre piece still has power to shock. Beautifully filmed with fine sound. Classical Music
​...in a performance such as that given by Alison Wells, the pathos and fractured humanity at its core pin you to your seat. In every perfectly imagined body gesture, facial expression and manipulation of her soprano, Wells showed a virtuoso understanding of Miss Donnithorne, her Reel, her Rant and her recitatives.
Hilary Finch The Times
...Davies's crystalline, transparent music is a marvel: lucidly conceived, its text brilliantly coloured, this work is in a modernist style that remains beguiling and irresistible (especially when played as superbly as it is by the Gemini Ensemble). Opera Magazine
Lindsay Cooper: A View from the Bridge
Double CD Impetus IMP CD29831
Beatrix Potter: The Tailor of Gloucester
(music Douglas Young)
VHS0411 9370209-02
Thames TV - broadcast worldwide)
Camden Reeves: Night Descending
Cadenza Music CACD 0807
Tim Ewers: Squaring the Circle
Guild GMCD7379
Tim Ewers' compositions presented here are without exception skilfully crafted by a composer who has a keen ear for instrumental color, details, balance, as well as melodic (albeit non-tonal) and rhythmic flow.. Squaring the Circle is highly recommended to general listeners of contemporary music and to clarinetists and keyboard percussionists, who may discover a recital gem of substance. This is a terrific CD. The Clarinet
Geoffrey Poole: Septembral
Metier MSV CD92061
Gile Easterbrook: The Moon Under Water
Prima Facie pfcd 002