Two's Company
(2005) A concerto for oboe and percussion and orchestra
Duration circa 20-21'
Instrumentation: 2.1+CA.2.2/3.2.2.1/hrp/Strgs/Solo oboe/solo percussion
Commissioned by the BBC

World Premier:  BBC Promenade Concert, Royal Albert Hall, 31st August, 2007
BBC Symphony - Jiři Bělohlávek, conductor; Nicholas Daniel, oboe; Dame Evelyn Glennie, percussion

Publisher:  Novello & Co Ltd

Critical Acclaim:

.  .  .  Musgrave has been a Proms favourite for years and this new commission could have been tailor made, so well did it succeed. ….

The basic premise of this piece is a dialogue between percussion and oboe, the two instruments physically moving closer together around the stage as the piece progressed. This is a Musgrave speciality, and contributes greatly to making the piece work…… Two’s Company is a pleasant sequence of sounds, with some bright jazzy touches… . Certainly this was a huge hit with most of the audience….
— Anne Ozorio. Music-Web

……beguiling new concerto for oboe, percussion and orchestra called Two's Company. The title says it all. This is a musical courtship, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Belohlávek acting as facilitators in a romance between a pair of seemingly incompatible instrumental forces.
In an almost theatrical, and certainly poetic, way, the piece conjures up the hopes, doubts, difficulties and resolutions of a relationship, and the fact that all the performers embraced one another at the end seemed to signal that everything had turned out well…..The opening of the concerto is marked "desolate, lonely", featuring the oboe in disconsolate phrases against seductive percussion of mellow tones. Playfulness and then tensions ensue, with the percussionist turning intimidatingly towards the more robust instruments in her arsenal……The oboist moves tentatively around the platform, the two protagonists circling and eyeing one another and gradually reaching an understanding……

The instruction to be "warm" in the penultimate section had shifted to "passionate" in the final one, the music correspondingly reflecting a growing sense both of ease and of exultation. Beautifully played here, Two's Company had at its root a cunning idea that married music to an eternal emotional conundrum, and, with the orchestral commentary and encouragement, was acted out with a poignancy that will have brought a smile of recognition or remembrance to many a listener.

The second part of the concert was…..
— Geoffrey Norris.  Daily Telegraph

There is a gentle element of spectacle to Thea Musgrave's new work, Two's Company, written for the odd soloistic couple of oboist Nicholas Daniel and percussionist Evelyn Glennie.

Unattended clusters of percussion instruments are ranged at various points around a chamber-sized orchestra. Glennie begins stage right, adding low chimes and sweeps of glittering bells to an elegiac, deep-breathing opening. When Daniel joins in, duetting with cor anglais, viola and clarinet in turn before settling on a dialogue with Glennie, it is from up the steps on the other side.

The rest of the piece sees the two moving to different stations around the orchestra … while getting ever closer, until Glennie lets Daniel lead her to the marimba at the front, where they combine in more conventional duet.
It works, just about, though in the context of a space this vast the distances between the two soloists never seem that great. At 20 minutes the piece is hardly insubstantial….. And Musgrave's musical style, tonal but never obvious, remains intriguingly and appealingly her own.
— Erica Jeal.  The Guardian

……Thea Musgrave's new piece is a charmer, starting with shimmer and bells over dark murmurs, a sun-dappled Mahlerian forest. Playfulness and aggressiveness are kept within decorous limitations, controlled, lyrical and - is this why she has to live in America? - attractively tuneful. An immediately accessible work, it makes one wonder why Musgrave is heard relatively rarely in Britain. One of our few composers who tackles big works (what on earth happened to Covent Garden's co-commissioned 1985 opera on anti-slavery campaigner Harriet Tubman, an obvious choice for this year's abolition celebrations?), Edinburgh-born Musgrave deserves pride of place in a national opera company. But then the Scottish government's attitude to the arts makes John Knox look as hedonistic as Pete Doherty.
— Martin Hoyle. The Herald

Composer's Note:

This work was commissioned by the BBC for Evelyn Glennie and Nicholas Daniel. It was an exciting challenge to write a dramatic work for two such dissimilar instruments. I decided that I would strongly dramatize this difference before bringing them harmoniously together. Thus at the beginning of the work the two soloists are standing as far apart from each other as possible: the percussion downstage right, behind the celli, and the oboe off stage left. For each of the four ensuing sections the soloists move around the orchestra to different positions and these changes are always dramatically motivated. Throughout the two soloists are aware of each other and play with each other's attention, but only come together musically and physically in the very last section.

The slow first section is marked Desolate, lonely: When the oboe first enters he responds initially to the cor anglais, and then later to a solo clarinet. This encourages him to go on stage and take a position near his fellow woodwinds which precipitates the second movement. The solo percussion, hoping to attract the oboe's attention moves to the vibraphone which is set closer at hand.

The second section, Frivolous, playful is a jaunty scherzo, mostly in 5/4 rhythm, and for a time it seems that the oboe responds favourably to the percussion, but then the horns attract his attention and he eventually moves so as to be close to them and the harp.

In frustration the solo percussion moves to the drums [congas, tomtoms and bongos]. The third section Dramatic: furioso/espressivo is a series of confrontations. Aggressive music for the percussion [supported by strings and brass] alternates with an expressive solo oboe [accompanied by horns and harp]. These alternations come closer and closer together ending in a big climax. The oboe finally turns to the percussion and "invites" her to listen. The percussion responds and so sets the scene for both soloists to come down stage center and bonding for the final section: Warm leading to Passionate and finally Exultant a whirling coda.

Recording:

Two’s Company
Dame Evelyn Glennie, Nicholas Daniel, Jiri Belohlavek (conductor)
and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
NMC D 153 - See CD Review
 

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