Farpoint Recordings, 2026
Dario Calderone, Lina Andonovska, Cathal Roche, Alex Petcu
CD and Digital Download
As I mentioned in my review of a recent performance of a new composition Adam's Rib, the voice has been an intriguing and multifaceted variable in several of Ian Wilson's recent works, most obviously in Lost Voices but also even in the 'lost voice' of Orpheus in Orpheus Down. What is interesting about Ian Wilson's 'voice' in the music of Necromancer is that it operates on different levels that reveal and illuminate different aspects of what might otherwise be a challenging work. Even the instruments and the musicians chosen to play the piece all bring a unique voice that determines the narrative drive, colouring the imagery and the inspiration behind it.
As a Belfast born composer, or indeed as anyone born in Northern Ireland who has lived through the height of Troubles, how you process that unquestionably formative experience is different for everyone. For many it's something that you can only acknowledge much later in life - the Troubles having ended over 30 years ago (supposedly) - and often it seems from a safer more distanced perspective. In my case I’ve found some of the most powerful reflections on those times not dating from the period, but from a reflective view written many years after the events by creative new Northern Irish writers of fiction like Anna Burns, Olivia Fitzsimons and Liadan Ní Chuinn, some of whom would have been too young or even yet born to experience the worst days of the Troubles. For Ian Wilson, it is a book of photographs "The memories of others" taken back in the day by Japanese photojournalist Akihiko Okamura that inspired a response, a "musical exorcism" reflecting on these images from the past viewed in the context of memory from the distance of today.
Analysing or providing a critical response to a piece of music from such a personal space can be difficult and probably not instructive. It's clearly a genuine artistic response that combines experience with the ability to express that musically, which is something that is clearly never in doubt when it comes to this composer’s work. The choice of these four remarkable musicians to play it ensures that the work stands on its own terms and its underlying 'narrative' is expressed to its fullness. Each musician and instrument has a significant role to play in not just creating a musical soundtrack for the photographs that inspire each of the pieces or merely echo them, but independent of them they come together to evoke the sensibility, a mood, a memory that lies behind the images, even contributing some controlled improvisation to the notated score, essential to the unpredictable explosive nature of the subject.
Percussionist Alex Petcu you would imagine plays an important role in that, and it's not just for clattering sounds of marching bands, burning bonfires or rioting mobs. There is a delicacy to the opening prelude (Still life with milk bottles), the familiar (to those of us of a certain age) tinkle of milk bottles on a doorstep that nonetheless carries the ominous edge that they may well be used later for Molotov cocktails. There is a narrative line then in the subsequent pieces, not strictly linear, but expanding to carry subtle hints at deeper motivations, sentiments and context. That is achieved precisely through the use of instruments, the subsequent percussive explosion of Bonfire settling into an urgent stirring of emotions in the double bass of Dario Calderone; the breathiness of Lina Andonovska's contrabass flute and Cathal Roche's bass clarinet could be wind blowing on the embers or they could allude to the human element and emotive impact blending with the sparks and crackling.
It is incredible that there is so much expressed in that short piece alone, but it also has its own qualities as a striking piece of music. The whistle of flight and crash of those Milk bottle molotovs in the subsequent section is a little more musically descriptive but again, it has a rich blend of musical elements, space and silence to allow the listener to consider the impact of the destruction they caused to people and the vehicles and homes they were usually aimed at. (Although I am too young to remember the specific event, I do remember the terror of those days when we once had a petrol filled milk bottle thrown into our backyard back at the start of the Troubles in 1969. Fortunately it failed to ignite). An Interlude reflecting on those put out of her homes gives you room to consider a worse eventuality. Again, having been pulled out of a bombed building on another occasion (virtually unscathed), it's something that I can personally relate to.
I have to admit that even on a first listen, I found that I didn't need the titles to follow the sequence, the music independently telling their own story divorced from the images that inspired them (I have a copy of the photos inspired the music, but they aren't reproduced in the CD edition for copyright reasons), and my reflections took on their own direction inspired by the music. That is surely an equally valid response, as is just simply letting the music speak to you in whatever way feels right, but there is little doubt that it is intrinsically tied up with the settings suggested by the images and it's immensely rewarding to try to connect with them, but even the titles of the pieces tell you everything you need to know.
Mopping up the Blood, for example, sounds like it could be harrowing - and indeed there is what sounds like a frenzied panic of rubbed strings, hyperventilated breathing on the wind instruments and the percussive echo of the impact of an explosion still ringing in the ears at start of the piece but it is actually develops into a deep, reflective and sorrowful piece. The ever varying nature of the experience and the response to it continues after another Interlude to two richly musical pieces that are lighter and easy to engage and identify with. Street Altar and Children with bunting and police landrover both again have that layered quality, children from both sides of the community making the most of play from found materials in rundown working class streets where scenes of atrocities have taken place. The innocence of the situations - the music not suggesting any sense of irony in the juxtaposition - reflect an outlook oblivious to any notion that there is anything unusual here or that the world could be any different. That is a vital part of the 'story' here.
Necromancer is undoubtedly a piece that you may find you have a closer connection with if you have lived in the place and times that inspired it. Even if you have not experienced the Northern Ireland Troubles however, the musical qualities of Ian Wilson’s compositions and the intense but sensitive playing of the musicians have a character and a flow that takes the listener on a journey that has deeper resonances. Necromancer reawakens the dead not only to have them speak of the past as a form of exorcism, but as the Epilogue reminds us, while also taking into account the high human cost in a world were there is still no shortage of war and conflict, peace is the only effective way of exorcising those demons.
WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
Created with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland
Music composed by Ian Wilson and published by United Music Publishing Ltd. (UMP)
Performed by double bassist Dario Calderone, flautist Lina Andonovska,
clarinettist Cathal Roche and percussionist Alex Petcu
Recorded, edited and mixed by David Stalling
Produced by Ian Wilson and David Stalling
Images: Justine Cooper
Digital release co-ordinated by Anthony Kelly and David Stalling
External links: Necromancer, Akihiko Okamura
