Alison Murray - Robin Stevens: Orchestral Music Vol. 1 [CD]

The compositional career of Robin Stevens, Welsh-born (in 1958) and Manchester-based, is divided into two periods, separated by a period of illness. The first mainly produced chamber music and works for the church that employed him; restored to health, he found an appetite for larger forms, writing three substantial concertos and a number of other orchestral works - all now recorded for Toccata Classics. This first album sets his expansive Bassoon Concerto amid three shorter works, each of them revealing how his command of orchestral colour and melodic line can suggest landscapes and narratives. In the slow movement of the Concerto in particular, there are passages of deep feeling and intensity, but Stevens also has a healthy sense of fun, which often emerges unexpectedly to energise his music.