John Kinsella - Sym #4 - P O'Duinn, NSO of Ireland (1996) [Philidor; FLAC]

Although little known abroad, John Kinsella is an Irish composer especially noted for his many symphonies. Born in 1932, he was for a long time a follower of the European serialst movement. Like many of his colleagues, he became disillusioned with serialism in the 1970s. Whether this had anything to do with the large public audiences who responded to George Rochberg's espousal of multi-stylistic tonalism a few years earlier or not, Kinsella began writing in a complex but approachable tonal style in the 1980s.

His Symphony No. 4 of 1991 is subtitled "The Four Provinces." However, as Kinsella readily states, the Irish provinces in question are not depicted in any way--one writer described the reference to provinces as "red herrings." Instead, some abstract idea is derived from each. So that in the finale, Leinster, which Kinsella describes as highly centralized, he's actually exploring in an insistent fashion issues of modalism, hardly moving from an ambiguity between dorian and aeolian. This is his "centralism," a focus that never wavers.

And yes, I know that's probably more than you want to know. Still. It sounds great. Trust me.


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Bio enclosed. You can find all my classical uploads by searching on Philidor, or just looking in this regularly updated thread:

http://kickasstorrents.ee/community.../philidor-s-classical-stuff/