Marius Neset - Geyser - Live at Royal Albert Hall – BBC Proms [CD]

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: ACT9056-2 
Barcode: 0614427905628
Release Date: 03 Nov 2023
Genre: Jazz

 “‘Geyser’ is a piece in eight movements that takes us on an elementally exciting journey in its 65 minutes, with sounds and virtuosities of truly volcanic energy and intensity, and also moments of breathtaking stillness and lyricism.”
 That was how BBC Radio 3 presenter Tom Service prepared the radio audience for the broadcast of the premiere of ‘Geyser’, transmitted on live radio from the impressively cavernous spaces of the Royal Albert Hall.
 The BBC Proms, widely known as the world’s greatest classical music festival, had commissioned Marius Neset to compose the piece and to give its world premiere
performance of the new piece for his quintet and nineteen players of the London Sinfonietta during the 2022 Proms season.
 To receive a commission from the Proms is a tremendous accolade in itself, and the epic scale of ‘Geyser’ suits the unique grandeur and scale of the famous London venue. 
 Whereas Neset is most widely known as a prodigiously gifted saxophonist, his emergence and development as a composer during the past decade has been truly
remarkable. ‘Geyser’ is Neset’s third work involving the London Sinfonietta, after ‘Arches of Nature’ and ‘Snowmelt’ (2016), described as “majestic” by Downbeat, and ‘Viaduct’ (2018), commissioned by the Kongsberg Jazz Festival.
 ‘Geyser’ was described in the concert programme as “a story in sound.” The coherence and flow of the storytelling in Neset’s composition are nothing short of miraculous. The whole venture, as John Fordham of the Guardian has previously written of the Neset / London Sinfonietta combination, is “grippingly coherent as well as instrumentally dazzling.”

Tracklisting
Part 1 - Waterfall
Part 2 - On Fire
Part 3 - Out of Sight
Part 4 - Under the Surface
Part 5 - Lava
Part 6 - Flow
Part 7 - Meeting Magma
Part 8 - Outbreak