There are many great classical music labels releasing incredible music. Of labels I look to as signifiers of interesting music and quality, there are too many to name.* NMC is one i’m especially grateful for.
Founded in 1989 by composer Colin Matthews, the NMC Recordings label is what the British call a “charity” label, meaning it is a non-profit whose budget is dependent on trusts and foundations. (Among those foundations are ones established by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears and by Gustav Holst’s estate.) Its purpose is to present the work of living British, Welsh, Irish and Scottish composers (of the nearly 300 releases to date, I know of only a couple that present works of deceased composers), and it continues in its mission today. To wit: two of my favorite releases from 2019 – Joe Cutler’s Elsewhere and Joanna Bailie’s Artificial Environments are NMCers. Because most of what I know of British contemporary music comes via NMC releases, I have the impression the U.K. avant garde is a diverse, ambitious and fun milieu in which to work. NMC, it seems to me, is the legacy of probing and unshackled 1960s composers like Harrison Birtwistle, Brian Ferneyhough and Cornelius Cardew pushing every button they could get their fingers on, and, before that, to the experimenting Britten did in his post-war career.
NMC also gives me the impression that there are an inordinate number of brilliant women composers in the U.K. I included pieces by no less than seven women on this mixtape, and that’s leaving out some of the big names like Musgrave, Lutyens, Judith Weir and Imogen Holst. These are younger women, most of them – late 20s, 30s, 40s. One of the things I like a lot about classical music’s peripherals is the involvement of women; there are large numbers of great women instrumentalists, and of great women composers. Women are increasingly being named as music directors/principal conductors of orchestras, including major ones. I was hoping for the female candidate in our minor orchestra’s new conductor search two years ago. Women are better than men. Men are completely full of shit. I’ve been studying this.
I have a few dozen NMC issues, and several on Huddlefield Contemporary Records (HCR) which is a younger cousin that includes non-Brit composers. To acknowledge NMC’s 30th anniversary, I’ve selected some of my favorite pieces (and pieces of pieces) for this collection. There’s regular acoustic stuff, electro-acoustic stuff, weird stuff, beauiful stuff. Birtwistle’s Melencolia (incl. here in its |albeit divided| entirety) is a great composer at his best. Birtwistle is a genius, with an inky-dark sense of humor, so dark at times it may be sound asleep.
There is only one non-NMC track on this mix, and that’s a recording of a Colin Mathews piece on Deutsche Grammophon. It’s a movement from a piece he wrote as a youngster back in the mid-1970s. It’s excellent and serves to give you an idea of the mind behind the label’s inception.
0:00:00
Andrew Hamilton: Music for people who like art (excerpts)
Michelle O’Rourke (soprano) w/ Alan Pierson: Crash Ensemble
Hamilton: music for people ~ NMC 240
0:00:48
Jonathan Harvey: Bhakti; IX.
Guy Protheroe: Spectrum
Harvey: Bhakti ~ NMC 001
0:05:48
Barry Guy: After the Rain; II. Chorale
Richard Hickox: City of London Sinfonia
Guy: After the Rain ~ NMC
0:08:53
Deidre Gribbin: Merrow Sang
RTE Vanbrugh Quartet
Deidre Gribbin ~ NMC 185
0:18:41
Colin Matthews: Fourth Sonata for orchestra
Oliver Knussen: London Sinfonietta
Broken Symmetry ~ Deutsche Grammophon
0:22:54
Chris Newman: Le Repos sur le lit
Michael Finnissy
Michael Finnissy Plays Wier, Fox, Newman & Finnissy ~ NMC 002
0:30:47
Donnacha Dennehy: Bulb
Fidelio Trio
Bulb: Irish Trios ~ NMC 147
0:42:16
Richard Ayres: NONcerto No. 36 for Horn;
I. Valentine Tregashian dreams of the Swiss girl
Roland Klutig: Frankfurt Radio Symphony
NONcertos and others ~ NMC 162
0:48:16
Kate Whitley: 3 Pieces; No. 1
Eloisa Fleur-Thom (v) & Kate Whitley (p)
Kate Whitley: I Am I Say ~ NMC 229
0:52:03
Joe Cutler: Akhmatova Fragments; V.
Sarah Leonard (soprano) w/
Joe Cutler: Elsewhereness ~ NMC 246
0:59:44
Joanna Bailie: Symphony-Streety-Souvenir; I. Symphony
Plus-Minus Ensemble
Bailie: Artificial Environments ~ HCR 06
1:04:06
Harrison Birtwistle: Melencolia, pts. I-III
Oliver Knussen: London Sinfonieta
16 3 2 13… ~ NMC 009
1:18:25
Errolyn Wallen: In Earth
Wallen: Orchestral Works ~ NMC 221
1:26:27
Noszfersatu: How the Hammer Felt
Noszfersatu: Drempel ~ NMC 166
1:33:52
Rebecca Saunders: Stirrings Still II
Riot Ensemble
Speak, Be Silent ~ NMC 201
1:46:11
Laura Bowler: Salutem; V. Modern Era
Maryas Trio
In the Theater of Air ~ NMC 248
1:50:03
Gerald Barry: Intelligence Park; Interlude – Battle of the Dummies
Robert Houlihan: The Almeida Ensemble
Barry: The Intelligence Park ~ NMC 122
1:51:52
Helen Grime: Into the Faded Air; IV. Grave
Jamie Phillips: Halle Soloists
Grime: Night Songs ~ NMC 150
1:54:10
Christopher Cox: lliK.elliK
Ian Pace
tracts: Works for solo piano by Barrett/Dench/Erber/Ferneyhough/Fox ~ NMC 066
1:59:56
Skempton: Ben Somewhen
James Weeks: Birminghan Contemporary Music Group
Skempton – Ben Somewhen ~ NMC 135
2:12:11
Hamilton: Music for People Who Like Art (finale)
2:17:18
Birtwistle: Melencolia, pts. IV-V
2:30:25
Joanna Bailie: Trains
2:41:01
Howard Skempton: Lento
Mark Wigglesworth: BBC SO
Lento (single) ~ NMC 005
* So here goes: BIS, ECM New Series, Sono Luminus, Ondine, Dacapo, Cedille, Toccata, Naxos, Dux, Accord (Poland), the Cold War power trio of Hungaraton, Supraphon and Melodiya, Quartz, Chandos, Capriccio, NMC (of course), and the big boys Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Sony. That’s off the top of my head without looking. Anything on those labels is likely to be very good.
Concentration Camp 