John Paul Jones’ new song cycle “Her Kind”, written for opera singer Dame Sarah Connolly, had its premiere in London on January 8.
Jones attended the performance at Wigmore Hall, but did not perform the work which was based on four feminist poems.
In its review of the song cycle, The Times called the work “rather dreary” and claimed the doubling of instruments in Jones’ scoring “made the textures flat and murky.”
“Also to blame was the sombre mood of the first three songs and the intoning vocal line — far less varied than the texts demanded,” the review claimed. “Only in I Say, the final number, did we enter jaunty Americana territory, an upbeat if unexpected twist.”
The newspaper did note, however, that Jones’ selection of texts for the song cycle was “well-chosen” and said: “The words paint vivid pictures carefully weighted by Connolly, and Jones’s dramatic instincts come through in the pacing, which bodes well for his opera in the offing.”
The Telegraph also reviewed the performance, calling the work “anything but tame”.
“These new songs had a fluency and subtlety that were light-years away from the driving bass riffs of his early days,” the newspaper wrote.
The Telegraph also praised Jones’ selection of the texts, noting that Jones brought one poem to life “with stormy tremolandos from the violinist and cellist, unsettled yearning melodies from the flute and clarinet, wild declamation from Connolly – and just one delicate bass riff at the end.”
Opera Today also attended the performance, calling the start of the song cycle “dark and dense at the start, emanating a forbidding aura, picking up an intense chill in the wind, with the bass clarinet adding touches of forceful inkiness.”
It also felt the final song had elements of Americana. “I found myself transported into Scott Joplin territory, and very convincingly so,” the site wrote. “With Joseph Middleton’s obvious delight in the piano syncopations of ragtime and Connolly’s pronounced American accent, this turned into a frolicsome romp.”
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