Peter Gregson - Patina

A Closer Listen

Patina is another triumph for cellist-composer Peter Gregson, and is our pick of the season in Modern Composition.   Never content to rest on his laurels, Gregson challenged himself while constructing this new set.  After preliminary recording sessions, he eliminated the melodies and rebuilt the tracks on counter-melodies, then repeated the process.  One might guess the results would border on abstraction, but the pieces instead find new forms, doubling back on each other and exposing new sides.  After all the tinkering, the album remains thoroughly melodic.

The album also yields a wide range of timbres, most apparent in the contrast between two video singles. “Over” and “Sequence (seven)” may include similar images, but one reflects stillness through strings and slow, steady sequences, while the other conveys turbulence through electronics and swift edits. Gregson calls “Over” the album’s “most romantic and yearning” cut; Stephen Proctor’s direction holds suit.  The track builds from silence and invites contemplation.  Soft ripples are matched by tentative strings.  Camera and composer draw back simultaneously.  Then yes, melody, almost a chorus.  The branching streams echo the branching lines.  And finally, the vast, blue sea.

Contrast this with “Sequence (seven), in which Gregson steps back ~ no solo cello here ~ and allows arpeggios to rule the roost.  Those branching rivers appear again, and we can hear the sea ~ but we also feel a desire to frolic.  The vantage point zooms, spins, recalibrates; now it tilts and accelerates. As the electronics bubble and pirouette, the strings provide firm grounding, finally rising to a well-constructed level of drama that surpasses that of the electronics.

The album’s title track finds the composer front and center, flanked by lights and collaborators. The rippling turquoise curtain is a reminder of the album art.  As the players increase, the piece begins to surge.  The theatre remains frustratingly empty, but the players pay this no mind; the projectionist adds blooming flowers, fire and rain, hands intertwined, again like rivers.

The entire album is this beautiful; any one of the nine tracks could have been chosen as singles.  “Sense” rises out of lovely piano notes, singing with subtlety over its first half and bursting with color in its second, before returning to the piano in the close.  “Don’t Wake” is a showcase for the cello and a haunting, repeated theme.  And closer “Continuum” ties the whole project together with percussive joy, as if the rivers have finally found their sea, the harmonies their melody, the theatre its audience.  At 2:57, Gregson’s cello leaps to the foreground, making a declarative statement in the waning moments.  Should one melody fall, another will rise to take its place.  (Richard Allen)

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The Quietus

Whether interpreting Bach, scoring film and TV, or premiering works by composers including Scott Walker and Steve Reich, Peter Gregson has long grasped the value of presence in music. On his fifth full-length album, Patina, the Scottish cellist-composer flips that tradition by delving much deeper into it.

Exploring what Gregson refers to as the "presence of absence" in music - or seemingly audible non-things - Patina is the first album specifically recorded and designed for Dolby Atmos, an audio format that allows one to hear sound in a 360-degree bubble. On paper, it's Kubrickian to the nth degree. In real terms, it fully checks out: by asking what we hear - and where we hear it - when the melody is removed from a composition, Gregson offers up rare magic from interactive immersion.

Released in 2014, Lights in the Sky found Gregson wedding analogue synthesizers with cello and piano. It hit home, but on Patina, he ups the ante considerably. Brought to life by a host of condenser mics, pre-amps, and converters, there is a heavy emphasis here on how reverb can alter the essential shapes of sound stringed, wired or otherwise. The title track here is a textbook case. Above a sweeping string ensemble, surging front and centre, a rippling synth pattern roams free. Strain your ear and its journey to silence is a vivid, wondrous thing.

The power of Gregson’s meticulous compositions is how the myriad spectres of sound reckon on what has come before. From outright peak 'Over', and the fluttering arpeggios of 'Continuum', to the decaying dance of 'Sequence (Seven)', filling in the blanks is all part of the listening experience. By recognising that perceived absence makes us more intensely aware of our surroundings, and more speculative in our thinking, the reward - the real, soul-enhancing pay-off - is realising we can be contributors, too. With it, Gregson becomes a force.

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