WILL BUTTERWORTH – The Nightingale And The Rose
Jellymould –JJ026
Will Butterworth: piano; Seb Pipe: alto saxophone; Nick Pini: double bass; Pete Ibbetson: drums.
Recorded: Porcupine Studios July 2014.
This is Butterworth’s fifth CD. It is a suite based on the beautiful Oscar Wilde fairy tale. It is worth briefly summarising the plot of the story because this gets a sense of the mood that the music conveys.
A student falls in love. His beloved asks him to get her a red rose. He searches the gardens nearby but cannot find any, and becomes despondent. A nightingale hears his complaint and takes pity on him. She flies off in search of a perfect red rose, but, after much travelling, cannot find any. The only option is to fly onto a thorn, prick her breast and let her blood colour a white rose. The student finds this red rose and takes it to his beloved. The nightingale has, of course, died by this point. The lady does not want the rose as it does not match her dress, and she prefers the jewels that another suitor has given her. The student throws the red rose into the gutter and goes home to read a book.
The suite begins with ‘No red rose in all my garden’ and track 7 is ‘A red rose in my garden’. So, the mood of the music swings from despair to hope and, by track 10, ‘A love perfected by death’, completes the cycle (both in terms of the story and in terms of the musical theme that introduced the suite). While the student might not learn much from the experience, at the end the bitter-sweet tragedy of the nightingale’s hopes of helping love to bloom, the reader of the story certainly does. As with any musical interpretation of such a strong story line, the mood that Butterworth and his colleagues convey has to mesh with the feelings engendered by the story. The launch of the CD had the suite performed with Gyles Brandwith (President of the Oscar Wilde Society) reading the story, so this would have been a perfect way of experiencing the conjunction of story and music.
Butterworth is a classically trained pianist and his compositions owe much more to contemporary ‘classical’ than to jazz. I was particularly reminded, by the ways that simple themes repeat and gradually unfold, on ‘minimalism’ and, at other times, of the piano music of Les Six. Pipe’s saxophone flies over the piano themes, responding to the developments and improvising lines that echo elements of the story. The rhythm section intervene to pick up the pace and inject a sense of swing, especially on tracks like ‘She swept over the garden like a shadow…’ (track 4), ‘Philosophy and metaphysics part 2’ (track 6), and ‘And like a shadow she sailed through the grove ‘ (track 8). The latter of these was the most overtly jazz-oriented of the pieces. The other pieces, as befits the theme and content of the story, were much more contemplative and gentle.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Jellymould –JJ026
Will Butterworth: piano; Seb Pipe: alto saxophone; Nick Pini: double bass; Pete Ibbetson: drums.
Recorded: Porcupine Studios July 2014.
This is Butterworth’s fifth CD. It is a suite based on the beautiful Oscar Wilde fairy tale. It is worth briefly summarising the plot of the story because this gets a sense of the mood that the music conveys.
A student falls in love. His beloved asks him to get her a red rose. He searches the gardens nearby but cannot find any, and becomes despondent. A nightingale hears his complaint and takes pity on him. She flies off in search of a perfect red rose, but, after much travelling, cannot find any. The only option is to fly onto a thorn, prick her breast and let her blood colour a white rose. The student finds this red rose and takes it to his beloved. The nightingale has, of course, died by this point. The lady does not want the rose as it does not match her dress, and she prefers the jewels that another suitor has given her. The student throws the red rose into the gutter and goes home to read a book.
The suite begins with ‘No red rose in all my garden’ and track 7 is ‘A red rose in my garden’. So, the mood of the music swings from despair to hope and, by track 10, ‘A love perfected by death’, completes the cycle (both in terms of the story and in terms of the musical theme that introduced the suite). While the student might not learn much from the experience, at the end the bitter-sweet tragedy of the nightingale’s hopes of helping love to bloom, the reader of the story certainly does. As with any musical interpretation of such a strong story line, the mood that Butterworth and his colleagues convey has to mesh with the feelings engendered by the story. The launch of the CD had the suite performed with Gyles Brandwith (President of the Oscar Wilde Society) reading the story, so this would have been a perfect way of experiencing the conjunction of story and music.
Butterworth is a classically trained pianist and his compositions owe much more to contemporary ‘classical’ than to jazz. I was particularly reminded, by the ways that simple themes repeat and gradually unfold, on ‘minimalism’ and, at other times, of the piano music of Les Six. Pipe’s saxophone flies over the piano themes, responding to the developments and improvising lines that echo elements of the story. The rhythm section intervene to pick up the pace and inject a sense of swing, especially on tracks like ‘She swept over the garden like a shadow…’ (track 4), ‘Philosophy and metaphysics part 2’ (track 6), and ‘And like a shadow she sailed through the grove ‘ (track 8). The latter of these was the most overtly jazz-oriented of the pieces. The other pieces, as befits the theme and content of the story, were much more contemplative and gentle.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
