Libretti
Emily Howard: The Anvil
The imagined sounds of mass protest run through composer Emily Howard’s and poet Michael Symmons Roberts’s The Anvil, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the Manchester International Festival to mark the bicentenary of the 1819 Peterloo massacre, in which crowds protesting for universal suffrage in St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, were brutally crushed.
To a solo soprano who narrates and remembers and a baritone who seems caught in the action, the work adds the immense forces of four choirs – each given music tailored to its particular capabilities, from professional to amateur – and the BBC Philharmonic to ask: what future was being forged in the tragic events that took place that day?
A second collaboration between Howard and Symmons Roberts, Elliptics (nominated for a 2023 Ivors Award), is quieter, more elegiac: a meditation on love and death, and on what we hope will survive.
Reviews of Emily Howard: The Anvil
“The Anvil succeeds in depicting the horror and devestation of Peterloo. The use of musical gestures, including vivid dynamic juxtopositions, Ivesian superimpositions, popular melody and hymn tunes such as Tallis Canon, is undoubtedly effective … [Elliptics]has an elliptical ambience … this creative complex of contrast, capraciousness and atmospheric orchestral accompnaiment that contributes to the work’s coherence and to its broader mood of melancholic introspection”
Gramophone
“The Anvil is an immersive and emotional experience … in ‘The Field Turns Inside Out, the orchestral assult mirrors the flash of sabres and crush of hooves, voices crying out as chaos reigns. Visceral and brilliant”
BBC Music Magazine
“Small and gentle aren’t on the agenda in Emily Howard’s The Anvil….Howard’s musical style, jangly and adversarial, entirely suits her subject: the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where troops charged into a crowd that was demonstrating voting reforms … The soloists Kate Royal and Christopher Purves, the Halle choirs, the BBC Philharmonic and conductor Ben Gernon thrust us magnificently into the fray”
The Sunday Times
Contents of Emily Howard: The Anvil
Release Date: 29 September 2023
Catalogue No: DCD34285
Total playing time: 1:06:54
Recorded live on 7 July 2019 (The Anvil) & 29 October 2022 (Elliptics) at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Producer: Tim Thorne (The Anvil), Matthew Bennett (Elliptics) Engineer: Stephen Rinker
24-bit digital editing: Stephen Rinker (The Anvil), Matthew Bennett (Elliptics)
24-bit digital mixing: Paul Baxter
(The Anvil), Matthew Bennett (Elliptics)
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter