MUSICAL POINTERS:
This is an arresting CD which compels listening. Gordon McPherson (b.1965) teaches composition in Scotland and judging from his notes for this CD his students must have lively intellectual stimulation along varied and unpredictable paths. He takes cues for composing from ordinary life; Detours is about memories and reflections about cars; he seems to have rather a lot of broken relationships which find their way into his music; he explored obsessive-compulsion disorder in a long and dense duo for piano and violin of 1990. The CD ends with Born of Funk and The Fear of Failing, a thoroughly engrossing guitar concerto which, he avers, is not a guitar concerto because it is impossible to write one!

I don't think the notes will greatly help you follow the music, but don't worry, it is mostly direct and accessible. Detours begins disconcertingly (to me) blandly, but this is deceptive and we soon enter complexities which bring to mind Ives, whom I guess is to McPherson's taste. He draws on genres outside the classical canon, and some of the references no doubt pass me by.

Psappha is an ensemble as innovative as is McPherson a composer. In their early days I greatly enjoyed a season of concerts about the Sea which they gave in Greenwich on the Cutty Sark - hawling a grand piano down into the ship for the purpose. The earliest work is the 25 mins duo Maps and Diagrams of our Pain inspired by fascination with psychiatry, commandingly interpreted by Richard Casey and David Routledge. Allan Neave is the soloist in what I found one of the most successful of guitar concertos (whatever the composer says about it) and the whole thing was recorded - quite astonishingly - in one day in April 2001 in the acoustically excellent hall of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Excellent production, as is Metier's way, and the cast list helpfully identifies who plays in what pieces. Strongly recommended for its originality and vitality.
Peter Grahame Woolf

THE WIRE:
Gordon McPherson views life's big issues refracted through the mundane, a bit like John Shuttleworth or Ivor Cutler with a music degree. His ensemble piece Detours (1998-2000) concerns itself with his experiences in cars. The first section, "Echo's Tape", is about a drunken taxi ride with a stranger who later became his girlfriend ("two years later we found ourselves in the same cab splitting up for the umpteenth time"), and "Memory Crash" is a travelogue about a car journey to a local computer repair shop nursing his indisposed PC. McPherson explores an intriguing hinterland between banal sounding sources and complex multi-dimensional extrapolations of the material with strong hints of Charles Ives. The set is completed by Maps And Diagrams Of Our Pain , a schizoid violin and piano piece inspired by obsessive-compulsive disorders, and the supple mini-guitar concerto Born Of Funk And The Fear Of Falling . Great titles for great pieces.
Philip Clark

MUSICWEB:
Detours is a set (a cycle?) of five works for ensemble written between 1998 and 2000. Each work may, I guess, be performed independently. Anyway, they were first performed on three different occasions. However, we are not told whether they are to be played in any given order, when performed as a cycle. After all, this may not be of any real importance. "Detours concerns itself with personal memories and reflections concerning cars ... the language of the five works draws upon musical loves and references from genres outside the classical canon". These words by the composer might imply some sort of eclectic or "crossover" music-making drawing on what the composer refers to as "musical vernacular". I must tell you that I had never heard any of McPherson’s music before, so that I read his insert notes before listening to the music; and I came to the conclusion that one should never do so. Indeed, reading about "musical vernacular" and "crossover", I feared to be confronted with some sort of musical hotchpotch; and, to tell you the truth, the opening bars of Echo’s Tape (1998), the first piece of Detours, made me fear the worst, for they sounded like someone else’s music, as a pastiche of some sort. The music, however, soon embarks in a totally different direction, with more astringent harmonies contradicting the almost neo-classical opening tune. In fact, McPherson’s music, at least in these works, seems to be playing with musical memories through often discrete allusions to the music of the past, albeit a recent past. So, the third piece Only the Driver Deserves to be Saved (1998), a brilliant toccata in all but the name, alludes (or so it seems to me) to Bartok. Memory Crash (1999) is a fairly straightforward slow movement unfolding almost seamlessly, with much restraint, but of great charm and quite atmospheric in mood. Lorelei (2000) is a miniature tone poem of some sort in which the flute clearly has the leading role. It of course relates to the German myth (or pseudo-myth) of the Lorelei, which may in fact be a 19th Century invention. The musical result, though, is quite attractive in its own right. The final work Phoenix (1998), too, may allude to some popular music, maybe (as mentioned by the composer) to Jimmy Webb’s song By the time I got to Phoenix, which ­ I must confess ­ I have never heard, or ­ at least ­ to what that song is about. I do not know; but what I know, is that Phoenix is a beautifully made, often nostalgic piece of music, really a Nocturne of some sort.

Maps and Diagrams of Our Pain (1990) "was inspired by a long-standing fascination [I] have had with psychiatry, in particular the study of obsessive-compulsion disorders". All right, then; but, again, I do not know how the music relates (or not) to the composer’s words. What we have here, though, is a fairly long and substantial duo for violin and piano, which opens with a long introduction for piano in which the violin joins in almost unnoticed before asserting itself more forcefully in the course of the piece. The dialogue between violin and piano, in turn aloof and impassioned, runs through a wide range of feelings and emotions, before reaching "the elongated coda" that does bring any real sense of reconciliation.

The diptych Born of Funk and The Fear of Failing (2001) "is not in essence a guitar concerto", although I firmly believe that it is one such concerto, albeit one for guitar and ensemble (somewhat like Malcolm Arnold’s) in which the guitar is more a primus inter pares rather than an outright outsider. It was commissioned by the Dundee International Guitar Festival. The first section Born of Funk is a lively, animated movement moving along with alacrity and energy, whereas the second section The Fear of Failing (almost twice as long) more or less combines a slow movement and an exuberant Rodrigo-meets-Stravinsky finale rounding off this very fine piece in joyful high spirits.

Well, yes, I am delighted to report that I really enjoyed the music that is thankfully free of "crossover". The music may at times allude to other musical genres, but it is never eclectic, i.e. in the worst meaning of the word. McPherson’s seems, judging from these works, a calm gentle voice prone to nostalgia, which is reflected in his warmly melodic style. Maybe other works of his will belie the opinion I gather from these quite attractive, accessible and superbly crafted pieces. Do not be put off by the composer’s notes that may be misleading, as if he was afraid that fine music such as this might be taken too seriously. Listen to the music first, and you will find much to enjoy here. Well worth investigating.
Hubert Culot