"... absolute mastery of orchestration"
Edinburgh Music Review
Reviews
Edinburgh Contemporary Music Ensemble, Reid Concert Hall, Edinburgh ****
Since the demise of ECAT, contemporary music hasn't enjoyed the same profile in Edinburgh, so kudos to ECME for delivering a programme to excite the ear and stretch the mind in their 15th anniversary showcase with new conductor Gordon Bragg. Claire McCue's consummate double trombone concerto, In Pursuit..., with the phenomenal soloists Dávur Juul Magnussen and Simon Johnson, was a dazzling tour de force.
Positioned at opposite ends of the stage, the trombones echoed and chased each other, their stereo sound converging, diverging and whooshing over a meaty orchestral texture... ****
(Susan Nickalls, The Scotsman)
National Youth Orchestras of Scotland, Symphony Orchestra, Perth Concert Hall,
...another concerto awaited the Perth audience after the interval: innovative Scottish composer Claire McCue’s 2019 ‘In Pursuit’, a one-movement double trombone concerto, in a brand-new version for full orchestra commissioned by the NYOS and receiving its première (technically, after Aberdeen, deuxième) performance. It is a hugely theatrical work, exploiting not only the aural characteristics of the instrument (with one player doubling on the rarely-seen alto instrument for some passages, while the other added wah-wah mute to the standard mute used occasionally by both) but also the visual physicality of the playing of a slide instrument in music that was not just scored, but choreographed. Two trombone virtuosi, New Zealander Blair Sinclair and Corkonian fellow-Irishman Cillian Ó Ceallacháin, took the solo roles. Both players start far apart at opposite sides of the stage, blowing into the instrument, then short staccato figures, then gradually introducing cantabile, legato and glissando, then melodic elements with more rhythmic complexity after moving to music stands closer together. All the while the orchestral parts increase in complexity too, with increasing use of the harp and tuned percussion, and harmonies that transition from non-functional to functional. For the last section, the soloists move together to centre stage and play the most complex music from memory, whilst following the choreographed movements (including even slide positions). The closing pages accelerate to a climactic rush of sound. Pretty amazing. Tumultuous applause confirmed the approval of the Perth audience and the composer came to the stage to acknowledge it in the company of conductor and soloists. As an aside, that now makes, in the space of 9 months, three female composers whose work I have felt moved to regard as confirmation of absolute mastery of orchestration: Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Mingdu Li and now Claire McCue. That fact, and the excellence of NYOS, allow me to believe that orchestral music has an assured future, in Scotland and internationally.
(Donal Hurley, Edinburgh Music Review)
Friday's second concert featured a string ensemble from the RSNO and a programme that progressed from the second of Haydn's seminal Op.20 string quartets, to the youthful genius of Mendelssohn's Octet, by way of a new work by the young Glasgow-based composer Claire McCue, whose Beauty & the Beastie is this years' winner of the Cottier Composition Competition. It was inspiring to hear McCue's work elicit a performance that was the most dynamic and distinctive of the entire programme. It's all about the curse of the Scots midge, so it's single-movement format unleases frenetic flashes of colour against a strong structural and harmonic background of basic simplicity. The string writing reveals a sure understanding of the instrumental possibilities, which this RSNO quartet realised with convincing intent.
Ken Walton (The Scotsman)
Staying on the Fringe, local band the Astrid Quartet, based in Glasgow, undertook an ambitious quintet series in Greyfriars Kirk, with cello, clarinet, double bass and piano (respectively) joining them in Schubert, Brahms, Dvor?ák and Elgar. Most intriguing, though, was the 14 August concert, when the quartet was joined by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s charismatic principal trombonist Dávur Juul Magnussen in two new pieces by Glasgow-based composers, for the unlikely but – as it turned out – entirely convincing combination of trombone and string quartet. …Claire McCue’s After the Before had more rhythmic bite and urgency, with Magnussen supplying some intensely characterful playing in the final movement’s assertive melodies, and the Astrid players tackling the composer’s demanding writing with poise and sincerity. It was only a short concert, but it was an unexpected delight, and a festival highlight.
David Kettle (The Strad)
… Perhaps more immediately prepossessing was Claire McCue’s After the Before, a more traditional three-movement work and so-called because she wrote the movements in reverse order. The trombone begins like a fugitive, fleeing over the strings, before a second movement pitting Magnussen’s expressive trombone against the tip-tapping of the Astrid’s hard-working bows in almost cinematographic music that hinted at lyricism. Both pieces impressed, although occasionally fell a little short in their exploration of the ensemble’s possibilities. The Astrid’s last concert, today, is the Elgar Piano Quintet with Scott Mitchell.
Sarah Urwin Jones, (The Times)
… a stylish, colourfully orchestrated piece, its quiet, twitchy first bars the prelude to the titular 'surge' of energy. [Surge]
(musicweb-international)
“”Drawn from one of those passing incidents in life that touch us all, McCue’spiece, for wind quintet, piano and mezzo, demonstrated a lovely light touch in its scoring, with here and there a Stravinskian feel to its rhythm and a beautiful, slightly Eastern flavor to the woodwind arabesquesthat decorated Catriona Morison’s telling of the tale. Within all the technical features however, it was McCue’s ability to sustain a mood of reflection that most impressed.” [A Scrap of Life]
(Michael Tumelty, The Herald)
…“In Claire McCue’s Train to Nowhere, the momentum eased to allow some lyrical, soulful musing on the cello….this was all good stuff, well-played by the Fidelio Trio, and a testament to young composers who believe what they say.” [The Train To Nowhere]
(Michael Tumelty, The Herald)
“Xi: Imaginary Numbers…The maths behind Claire McCue’s Xi: Imaginary Numbers mystified me, but the music, for large ensemble, was direct and immediate, launched with a series of strikingly dramatic gestures, propelled by a rhythmic pulse and an insistent, driving quality with intriguing little curls of melody on top.
(Michael Tumelty, The Herald)
