Our performance of the song cycle Solsange by American composer Lansing McLoskey has received a rave review in the annual “Awards issue” of Gramophone magazine (October ’08). We recorded this piece a few years ago, and it was recently released on Lansing’s debut album sixthspecies on Albany Records.
Solsange (“Sunsongs”) are three vocal settings written to the composer’s own Danish poems, penned while McLoskey was living in Copenhagen. The canonic first setting manages to suggest medieval music yet possesses a subtle 21st-century harmonic edge and the increasingly dense polyphony shines . . . The central, more chant-like setting is striking in maintaining a communicative simplicity despite the chromatic complexity, while the concluding “Hymne” offers elaborate solo lines in “a sort of organum in 21st-century St. Martial style”. This is difficult music but quite beautiful in its melding of old and new, andthe most compelling work on the disc. — GRAMOPHONE
In this featured review, Gramophone called Lansing’s compositions “smart, compelling and fascinating music…a bracing sampler from an engaging, greatly gifted composer I hope to hear more from.” Congratulations Lansing!
You can buy sixthspecies directly from Albany Records or from Amazon.com
Click here to listen to an excerpt