Peter Child: Reviews: Jubal Composed 2001. Excerpted from (Music and Vision, June 1, 2002)
http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2002/06/mit1.htm MALCOLM MILLER reviews the MIT Symphony Orchestra's concert at St John's Smith Square in London, including the first UK performance of ``Jubal'' by Peter Child The idea of a student orchestra performing Mahler and Penderecki in the cavernous acoustic of London's St John's Smith Square could seem daunting, but there was no doubt of the professionalism and high standards of the MIT Symphony Orchestra at its impressive concert on 29 May 2002, under the baton of charismatic conductor Dante Anzolini. The orchestra rose to the challenges of a formidable programme, which featured the UK premire of Jubal by British born, Boston based composer Peter Child, and Penderecki's Viola Concerto in a stirring performance by Marcus Thompson. The concert was the first in a UK tour taking them to Cambridge and to Bath, sponsored by the joint Anglo American Cambridge-MIT Institute, which aims to foster exchanges amongst these two leading institutions. The UK premire of Jubal seemed apt for a UK tour timed
for the Golden Jubilee weekend, but Child's title was inspired by Dryden's Ode
to St Cecelia, which acclaims the biblical inventor of musical
instruments. Composed last October for the New England Conservatory Orchestra,
Jubal has been performed by the MIT orchestra during its recent European tour
to Prague. Peter Child gained his main musical education in the USA where he
moved at the age of twenty, and where his main oeuvre stems, in almost every
genre. Jubal certainly attests to a mastery of the orchestra and sure sense of
structural purpose, though the style seems more akin to 70s avant-garde than
to the recent aesthetics of the new millennium. There are plenty of dramatic
outbursts following welling climaxes, interspersed by quieter interludes, an
unusually rich use of contrapuntal textures, based on motifs that draw on all
twelve tones, though not serial, and which transform through a myriad of
colouristic guises (one for harp and percussion springs to mind). As well as
being finely crafted there is a unifying mood that reaches a peak in an
expressive pedal point, sustained dissonance in the horns with side drum
interjections, preparing for a pensive conclusion.
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