DAVID BLAKE (b.1936): Violin Concerto (Iona Brown [violin], Philharmonia Orchestra; Norman del Mar), In Praise of Krishna (Teresa Cahill [soprano], Northern Sinfonia; David Blake).

Description: An exact contemporary of the 'Manchester School', Blake underwent a crucial transformation in his outlook and style that led to an abrupt turning away from the various forms of modernism embraced by his illustrious contemporaries Maxwell Davies and Birtwistle. This was his period of study with Eisler, which was at least partially responsible for engendering a more emotionally expressive style and identification with ideas of liberation and revolution. The concerto was a BBC Proms commission in 1976, a sensuous and atmospheric score with dodecaphonic elements which provide an underlying structure to what is essentially a bold and colorful late-romantic work with definite echoes of the Berg concerto. In Praise is even more deliberately sensuously beautiful, full of lush chromatic textures evoking languid, almost stifling tropical heat; an updated extension of the mood of Debussy's Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune of which Sorabji, in his 'tropical nocturne' mood might well have approved. Original 1979 Argo recordings.