NMC Recordings Causton: Millennium Scenes

Causton is one of the finest of the new generation of British composers."" Tim Ashley, The Guardian Richard Causton studied with Param Vir, with Roger Marsh at the University of York and with Jeremy Dale Roberts at the Royal College of Music. In 1997 he was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship, which enabled him to study with Franco Donatoni at the Scuola Civica in Milan.

Causton taught composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire for several years before taking up the newly-created post of Lecturer in Composition at the University of Cambridge in 2012. The highly energised title track Millennium Scenes is an anarchic, powerful piece scored for large orchestra plus car horns and whistles, evoking a mood of frenzy and unrest.

Causton frequently employs unusual instruments sometimes exotic, sometimes homemade, like the huge steel tube chimes in The Persistence of Memory: this is a work for 12 players exploring unconventional tunings which create dreamlike textures (the piece was inspired by sounds the composer experienced while bedridden and delirious in Bangalore).

Notturno explores the night landscapes evoked by poet Salvatore Quasimodo, As Kingfishers Catch Fire exploits the colours of flute, clarinet, harp and string quartet and Chamber Symphony, which closes the disc, juxtaposes ideas of the mechanical and natural, partlyinspired by the composer's fascination with the writings of William Blake.