Giles Swayne

A first retrospective of Giles Swayne's challenging but rewarding liturgical settings. This album brings together five short religious choral settings for mixed voices unaccompanied or with organ.

Modern Liverpudlian composer Giles Swayne's 'Murder Of Gonzago' score gains inspiration from Shakespeare's scene in 'The Tempest.'

Giles Swayne's Zebra Music comprises twelve pieces written to be suitable for the junior contemporary Piano student offering new music ideas to younger players. As the title suggests the music is written in 'layers' of black and white keys: one hand may be playing the black keys while the other hand plays the white; or both may be on white or both on black - only the final piece mixes the colours. By combining these simple modes with exciting and unusual rhythms Swayne produces a sense of global style within acessible pieces.

Giles Swayne wrote this piece to commemorate the life of his brother-in-law Nii Sackey Codjoe who came to England from Ghana as an illegal worker. Sackey's goal was to make money to give himself a better future in his home country but he was made redundant with the result that his life fell apart. He gambled and drank away all the money he had saved and eventually died of heart failure. Sackey's story is all too common but none the less tragic for that. He left no children and his warmth and laughter were blotted out by a world for which he was not adequately equipped leaving nothing behind. Nobody except a handful of kind Ghanaian church people came to hiscremation which was paid for by the hospital where he died.In the piece a simple 25-bar refrain is gradually transformed recurring four times. These four refrains are interspersed by four episodes which give a musical portrait of aspects of Sackey's life and character. After the fourth refrain comes the final section Valediction in which we hear his pulse (represented by flute horn and viola) falter and cease while the harp quietly plays the melody of a hymn which was a favourite of Sackey's:'Rock of ages cleft for me Let me hide myself in thee...'

A set of three songs for Tenor voice and Piano by Giles Swayne. In 1967 while recovering from an illness Swayne sent some compositions to the Royal Academy of Music in London and won a scholarship. Three song-cycles for Tenor and piano date from these years: Six Songs of Lust La Rivière and The Kiss.