Sullen earth

IAN WILSON, WORKS FOR STRING ORCHESTRA As shown by the pieces on this CD, Wilson’s music has retained its emotional impact through a period of rapid stylistic development. This arises in part from the frequent practice of presenting the compositional materials – be they melodies, harmonic sequences, or more complex gestures – with a minimum of dialectical adornment. This is not to say that Wilson’s music is neither dynamic nor unornamented – it is frequently both, and in Limena (1998) especially so. Here the core material is an elaborate piano fantasy (released as a solo piece under the title Lim) that encompasses both florid melody and expansive gestures across the keyboard.