Glyn Lehmann

 

Adelaide Hills-based composer Glyn Lehmann is a songwriter and an arranger for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble, theatre and television. He is also a poet and in his seven-movement song cycle As The Universe Expands, Lehmann sets to music his own meditative poetry in which he considers the nature of life amidst the evolution of the universe.

His composition As The Universe Expands, for bass voice, oboe and piano, was commissioned in 2024 by Chamber Music Adelaide for performance as part of its Perspectives series of concerts for voice, and it was premiered at the Adelaide Town Hall on the tenth of May of that year.

 

It is often the case that new work, no matter how attractive or significant, is only ever performed once or twice and is then neglected, and so the subsequent recording of this worthy work for release as a CD is most welcome. The CD was recently recorded at UKARIA Cultural Centre, the perfect venue for such music, and it is scheduled for official release on 26 June.

 

For its 2024 premiere, As The Universe Expands was performed by bass Pelham Andrews, oboist Celia Craig and pianist Penelope Cashman, and the same excellent ensemble was engaged for the recording. Oboist Celia Craig is a former principal oboe with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and has performed nationally and internationally with orchestras and smaller ensembles. In 2024 she was the soloist in Anne Cawrse’s brilliant new concerto for cor anglais The Rest is Silence, with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Celia Craig, Glyn Lehmann, Penelope Cashman, Pelham Andrews, Photo: Jason Mildwaters

 

Bass Pelham Andrews is a regular performer with State Opera of South Australia and performed in the 2022 premiere of the operatic oratorio Watershed – The Death of Dr Duncan in the Adelaide Festival.

 

Pianist Penelope Cashman, who is also a vocal coach, is a well-known collaborator and is especially known for her work with singers.

 

In its seven thoughtful movements, As The Universe Expands reflects on the emergence of life through the coalescence of atoms and becomes active before it ultimately returns to a primal atomic state.

 

The first element of the work is Prelude, which opens with a slow, quiet, rather mournful oboe passage with twinkling piano highlights before it develops into a steady rhythm. Celia Craig creates a mesmerising, unworldly sound with the oboe, suggesting a feeling of endless space and transporting the listener into a state of receptivity.

 

In the first stanza, entitled As the Universe Expands, the phrase ‘As the universe expands’ is simply repeated several times. Pelham Andrews voice is clear and powerful and the oboe swirls around his voice, with the gentle piano evoking dancing atomic particles.

 

In the second stanza, Atoms, the piano’s steady dotted notes suggest pinpoints of light while Andrews sings:

 

          Atoms scattering

          Atoms gathering

          Becoming

 

Single Breath opens with an exquisite oboe phrase before Andrews sings:

 

          With a breath

          A single breath

          A beating heart

          Becoming

          With a breath

          The Universe expands

          Within a life

          Becoming

 

The work continues until the final stanza, Still, becoming:

 

          With a breath

          A final breath

          A silent heart

          Still, becoming

          Atoms scattering

          Atoms gathering

          As the universe expands

 

In depicting life forming, growing and eventually dissolving back into the cosmos from which it emerged, Lehmann sees life up close, from a very personal and emotional viewpoint, and also sees life in a detached, philosophical way, as if reconciling himself to the inevitability of life and death.

 

In developing the work, Lehmann was evidently affected by the passing of his mother, and he was influenced by the writings of novelists Kurt Vonnegut and Alan Lightman, physicist Richard Feynman and cosmologist Carl Sagan, thus witnessing her life, and all life, within the evolutionary mechanics of the universe.

 

Andrews, Craig and Cashman create magic with Lehmann’s beautiful composition and the production of the CD is of the highest standard. Musically, these brief pieces are delightful gems and the story they tell so concisely is compelling.

 

Chris Reid

 

The CD is available at Bandcamp: glynlehmann.bandcamp.com

More info: glynlehmann.com