Night’s Black Bird / The Shadow of Night / The Cry of Anubis

"In a welcome if rare excursion into contemporary msuic, and recorded with tinglingly immediate atmosphere, the Hallé under Ryan Wigglesworth sound on top form throughout"
Gramophone Awards 2011 : WINNER- Contemporary

"It's as though Birtwistle, mellowing as he approached 70, had belatedly discovered his inner Elgar. The Hallé, incisively conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth, play with a dark, almost Edwardian, patina...Portly in sound, never pretty, though with its own warm and lumbering eloquence, the tuba seems the perfect solo instrument for Birtwistle...Owen Slade paints a wonderfully compelling picture of tenebrous rituals deep underground" (The Times)

"Ryan Wigglesworth's performances with the Hallé are quite superb, with the intricacies of Birtwistle's instrumental writing always perfectly clear. Alongside these works The Cry of Anubis, for tuba and orchestra, does seem a bit of an occasional piece...but with Owen Slade playing the solo part, it is performed with the same fastidiousness as the other works here." (The Guardian)

"These three relatively recent works could be by nobody else, yet there is manifest development...The Cry of Anubis is a perfectly plausible tuba concerto, with a superb soloist in Slade. Wigglesworth admirably brings out key detail from fiendishly complex scores." (The Sunday Times)

"the wait...has been worthwhile, not least when Ryan Wigglesworth (a composer of real promise) has so evident an affinity with music that can easily become earthbound in less sympathetic hands, with the Halle giving of its best....this performance of [Cry of Anubis] does ample justice to the music's sometimes aggressive but more often wistful melancholy...A disc worth acquiring by Birtwistle sceptics and a mandatory purhcase for admirers." (International Record Review)

"these are among the most powerful orchestral pieces of recent years...Wigglesworth and the Halle give performances of amazing concentration, accuracy and passion, aided by recorded sound of a matching depth and clarity...there's no doubting [Slade's] virtuosity, which encompasses the lyrical as well as the acerbic: yelps and barks remind us that Anubis was the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the dead...Overall an essential release." (BBC Music Magazine Awards 2012 Premiere Recording of the Year)