12 Ensemble and GBSR Duo - Mirrors NNF 2023

Mirrors was an expertly programmed and performed festival concert, demonstrating the skill and versatility of two of the UK classical music scene’s most impressive young collectives.

Billed as an exploration of music’s obsession with death, there was nothing maudlin or morbid about any of the varied and thoughtful performances. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the printed programme and the spoken introductions to the pieces, it would have been possible for a listener to experience the music without an awareness of the concept behind the selection.

The second half of the evening was made up of an arrangement (by GBSR’s percussionist, George Barton) of Brian Eno and Harold Budd’s Ambient 2: ‘Plateaux of Mirror’. This was deftly done and a thoroughly rewarding experience to drift in and out of, as was Eno’s intention. The arrangement and the relaxed, contemplative performance succeeded magnificently on their own terms.

Even so, it was the music of the first half of the concert - and in particular the world premiere of Laurence Osborn’s brilliant TOMB! - that will stay with me longer. Osborn’s piece was co-commissioned by the Festival and introduced by the composer. He explained that it took the form of a tombeau, where a living artist honours a dead one by impersonating their voice and spoke engagingly about the direction he’d taken this peculiar custom, before unveiling a piece that, in the course of twenty minutes, careered though musical history like a drunken zombie. A particular highlight of the piece was the astounding percussion, dextrously performed by Barton.

This piece closed the first half of the concert, after we’d experienced three excellent works by composers previously unknown to me: two pieces by Mica Levi which were composed for the film Under the Skin, followed by Fausto Romitelli’s Flowing down too slow. Romitelli was an Italian composer who died tragically young, at 41, in 2004. His startling piece was an unexpected discovery of this top quality evening and will certainly prompt me to explore his work further.