Martin Arnold
Flax
'Flax' is a 79-minute solo work for piano by the Canadian composer Martin Arnold. It was commissioned in 2020 by the pianist Philip Thomas, but sadly Philip became seriously unwell shortly afterwards. Martin Arnold completed the composition in 2021, and - as Philip was now unable to perform it - the project was taken on by Kerry Yong, with Philip's agreement and support. 'Flax' was premiered by Kerry Yong at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November 2023, when the CD recording was…
Stain Ballads
Four chamber works by the Toronto-based composer Martin Arnold, whose previous album ‘The Spit Veleta’ sold out last year. Beautifully played by Apartment House. "There are number of ways that the word 'ballad' could be applied to a lot of the music I make - clearly, I'm devoted to lyrical (if endlessly meandering) melodies, slow melodies that invoke a kind of vague, indistinct sentimentality. But it's significant to me that the word 'ballad' comes from the from Old French balade, from Provençal…
The Spit Veleta
The second CD in the Canadian Composers Series contains three recent works by the Toronto-based composer Martin Arnold, played by Mira Benjamin (violin) and Philip Thomas (piano). In his introductory essay to the booklet accompanying the Canadian Composers CDs, Nick Storring quotes a comment that Arnold made about one of his earlier works, highlighting a quality which Storring feels applies to a large part of Arnold’s compositional output: "The piece is not intended to be demonstrative but rathe…