Toru: Chamber Music by Martin Lodge
Martin Lodge
New Zealand Herald Review, May 12, 2012
William Dart
Martin Lodge is a composer with a solid orchestral portfolio. Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra premiered his 1994 Symphony together with two shorter pieces, Hinterland (1998) and Aer (2002); the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra included his 2008 Winterset among its series of specially-commissioned "mini-concertos".
Of these, only Hinterland is available on commercial CD, so it is good to have a generous selection of Lodge's smaller-scale work on a new Atoll release, Toru.
The album's title comes from a 2003 trio for clarinet, cello and taonga puoro. The compositional processes are radical for a proven symphonist - Lodge has Peter Scholes, James Tennant and Richard Nunns weaving their music from a score that suggests rather than stipulates.
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