Liza Lim — Annunciation Triptych

Here’s a pro package from Kairos, which you’d expect as an esteemed classical label, with a CD digipak featuring an extensive booklet neatly fixed inside. The Australian composer Lim presents, yes, three pieces here: ‘Sappho/Bioluminescence’, ‘Mary/Transcendence after Trauma’, and ‘Fatimah/Jubilation of Flowers’, all performed by the WDR Sinfonieorchester, featuring soprano Emily Hindrichs, and conducted by Cristian Măcelaru. The booklet explains that the Annunciation Triptych ‘draws a broad line from the Greek poet Sappho to Mary, the virgin Mother of God, to Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam. The composer considers the stories of these three women as comments on ecological, spiritual and transcultural issues of our times

I am not versed in the technicalities of composition and classical music - though if you are there are detailed notes in the booklet on the pieces - so you’ll have to endure more sound-y descriptions from me.

‘Sappho/Bioluminescence’ is first, and straight away I have to draw attention to the fact that all three titles are beautiful and evocative; this poetry is echoed in the music which is incredibly colourful, and tonally dynamic and elusive. Whilst there are blustery swirls, the most effective passages for me are more subdued, with shimmering, yearning strings, ominous horn drones, and ethereal eeriness, carried by strings that sound like blurred vocal cries: I’m reminded of Messaien in terms of colour and scope.

‘Mary/Transcendence after Trauma’ is next, and the eeriness is further explored, with quiet, scraping percussive sounds at one end of the aural spectrum, and swirling horn stabs at the other. At one point, the sound is reduced to the persistent tapping of a lone piano, before the orchestra explodes into blaring loudness. The piece unfolds slowly, and opens a door to unsettling creepiness without ever fully passing through it. The final piece of the triptych, ‘Fatimah/Jubilation of Flowers’, is equally as colourful as its predecessors, managing to combine strident, thick orchestral chords with the sounds of birds or laughing in its introductory sections. ‘Fatimah…’ sees the appearance of the soprano Hindrichs, who adds further colour to Lim’s sound world, and an operatic atmosphere, with the vocals often leading the composition. It’s perhaps my least favourite of the works here, but there are effective sections near the end which do sound like the world waking up.

I enjoy classical music and listen to it a fair amount, however, I tend to gravitate towards modern works which are generally more textural, so Liza Lim’s Annunciation Triptych was slightly out of my comfort zone, being less overtly avant-garde or formal. However, unlike quite a few of the things I review here, the CD has escaped the review pile and progressed to the ‘listening for enjoyment’ pile, which indicates how much I have indeed enjoyed it. The pieces flow along organically, taking you through different atmospheres, with lots of slippage between them that creates an elusiveness; a lack of centre in a good way. They don’t drift but their movements and shifts are flexible and exploratory; perhaps slightly unsettling in that regard, but never deviating from a path that is shimmering and colourful and, to quote the booklet notes, ‘luminous and buoyant and windblown’.