Wonderful, very interesting textures and very good overall structure , Paul.  I really liked that.

Wow, your music is so rich and full it feels there is more that a quartet at work!  Marvelous.

Love how organically this more rhymic sequence just suddenly evolved.

An exceptional work.  Thank you for sharing.

Symphony 2 - version for 2 pianos

An attempt to create the soundscape of Silbury Hill at Avebury

Avebury3-TWU

A new piece for String Orchestra.  Thank you for listening and hope you enjoy.

For String Orchestra

Hope you enjoy this piano piece recorded on a Bosendorfer.

Now I Know

Saint Mark Passion - part 4, complete

Misericordia

Ensemble InterContemporain
Nicolò Umberto Foron, conductor

Premiere (live recording)
Friday 10th November 2023

60° Festival Nuova Consonanza 
Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone

© Ph: Cantarelli Marta
© Archivio Nuova Consonanza

Seeds of Light

Frida Sketches 						
for string quartet 
by Paul Max Edlin

Programme Note:
The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo had an extraordinary life.  Born in 1907, she died at middle age in 1954.  At six she developed polio and a terrifying bus accident in her teens meant that she suffered life-long physical and health problems.  She married the Mexican artist and muralist Diego Rivera, who was twenty years her senior.  They had a tempestuous marriage, divorced and remarried.  No doubt due to her illness and her confinement to bed or being strapped in a body cast, Frida became self obsessed and made many extraordinary self-portraits.  These self-portraits tell us as much about Mexican culture, religion and symbolism, about the tragedy of the country at that time, its politics and its history as they do about Frida and her love-hate relationship with Diego.  Frida also kept a diary, and that is yet another fascinating glimpse into this surreal artist’s equally surreal world.

As a composer who has been surrounded by visual art all my life and for whom surrealist painting is particularly relevant, Frida Kahlo’s work excites me.  Furthermore, I have a love for symbolism in music and enjoy transferring extra-musical ideas into music itself – thus a piece becomes even more than its apparent surface.  A piece ‘becomes’ what it is because of what inspires it and what drives it.  Using ciphers, Frida’s name, the names of those who were around her, the name of her home, etc all ‘create’ the musical notes.  The diary inspires the musical structure – especially the passages which are ‘stream-of-consciousness’ that are actually highly poetic and highly rigorous in design.  Finally, the music of Lotti’s ‘Crucifixus’ permeates passages, and so it should as this is music that alludes to Frida’s world and her own crucifixion as a result of that tragic accident.

Frida Sketches is a sketch about the woman and her world, and it is a starting point for me to track a new path.  The work was written for the Arditti Quartet to whom it is dedicated.  

This performance, by the Arditti Quartet, was first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 3rd June 2012.

© Paul Max Edlin 2012 

Frida Sketches (2012) - Arditti Quartet

Live recording Teatro Grande di Brescia - Three songs on the persian poetry by Rūmī - Giulia Peri, soprano - Lamberto Curtoni, Cello

Three Persian Lyrics

Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese
Marco Moresco, conductor

Dark Clouds, for orchestra

Sheet music: https://ump.co.uk/catalogue/max-noah-the-candle-lagoon/
www.noahmax.net
It is told that if you approach the Lagoon at sunset, light a small candle and whisper your darkest secret to the waters, the waters will respond by summoning forth from the depths of the Lagoon a vision of your future, laid bare in the evening light. The Tale of the Candle Lagoon tells of a child — you, me, humanity entire — who does just this, but sees in the surface of the Lagoon only a reflection of themselves, of the burning clouds and the setting sun, a ball of fire nestled under the water. As twilight turns to night and the world turns cold, the child wonders which is more terrifying: has History been falsified, or are they and the whole Universe destined to burn?

Recorded live at the world premiere performance at St. Giles' Cripplegate on 26th November, 2018 Echo Ensemble: Winter Sun
Conducted by the composer

The Candle Lagoon, Op.8 (World Premiere) | Noah Max, 2018

Paul Max Edlin, 2016/2017 Composer in Residence for the London Chamber Orchestra, has a career that combines composing with higher education, artistic direction and performing.  

His works have been performed by many leading artists including Alison Balsom, Arditti Quartet, Britten Sinfonia, David Campbell, Cantus Ansambl, Dame Sarah Connolly, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Rolf Hind, Johannes Möller, London Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Olga Pasiecznik, Psappha, Silesian Quartet, Southbank Sinfonia and Gabriella Swallow.

He studied with Edwin Roxburgh, Richard Blackford and Joseph Horowitz (Royal College of Music) and Michael Finnissy (University of Sussex). He has won many prizes including Premio Internazionale Ancona, Harriet Cohen Memorial Award and United Music Publishers Prize. His music explores symbolism and often derives its inspiration from extra musical material. From the mid 80’s to mid 90’s many works were inspired by the art and architecture of South-East Asia, especially Indochina. From 2000 onward symbolism of a wider range of sources guided his music, from the chiastic structures of J.S. Bach to the writings of Gabriel García Márquez and Federico García Lorca and visual work of Frida Kahlo.

He is former Director of Music at Queen Mary University of London. He was Artistic Director of Deal Music & Arts (formerly Deal Festival) from 2004 to 2021, Sounds New (2007 to 2013), Director of International Composer Pyramid (2008-2023) and was Chair of the Board of of Trustees of Ora Singers. He is current Chair of China U.K. International Music Festival. He supports a range of charities and arts organisations through activities on their various boards and committees.  From 2012 to 2013 he was President of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM), the UK's leading association for professional musicians.

Frida Sketches (2012) - Arditti Quartet

Paul Max Edlin

Recent comments

Christopher Larkins | Composer

Christopher Larkins | Composer

Christopher Larkins | Composer

Christopher Larkins | Composer

Related tracks