"Delphian is a label that never shies away from contemporary music and, in doing so, creates a platform for composers to showcase their creative talents. This is particularly evident in the release of music by Australian-born, Glasgow-based, composer Jane Stanley. It showcases pieces created between 2013 and 2023 for various chamber combinations. It’s a fascinating insight into the composer’s mind hearing the interaction between the different textures. In the Suite for B flat clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, Stanley’s creativity accentuates the influence of Messiaen and Boulez. The Red Note Ensemble conveys her writing with balance, drawing all its strands into an equilibrium. Stanley writes - ‘Certain stylistic traits weave through these pieces, including an audible preoccupation with gesture (musical ideas that convey evocative feelings of energetic directed motion), intricately ornamented melodic patterning, and intertwining woven textures.’ ... The impressive contribution of the Hermes Experiment - they only appear once - is particularly effective in The Indifferent, combining a group of instruments that includes Helene Werner's striking soprano, clarinet, harp and double bass. The combination of different timbres and the rich resonance of the double bass works well to create a song cycle that draws inspiration from texts by Australian poet Judith Bishop. This cycle, as with all the compositions, creates intriguing outlines that reflect Stanley's formative years and her mother's passion for textile crafting"

"The music of Australian-born (in 1976) Glasgow-based composer Jane Stanley is, to me, by turns beautiful, cheeky, dreamy, engaging, gentle, intimate, modern-sounding, poised, reflective, serious, spatial, swirling and thoughtful ... All the other pieces on this CD are purely instrumental and are played by members of Scotland's Red Note Ensemble. Both groups record regularly for Delphian Records and have a high profile on the British contemporary classical music scene. I can find no fault with any of the performances here ... I believe that Jane Stanley has an important, distinctive voice on the contemporary classical music scene"

CLASSICAL MUSIC DAILY
read the full review here

Golven bouwen op tot ze breken, liefde ontluikt en verwelkt – de fatalist berust zich in zijn lot en legt zich erbij neer. Het is het gevoel dat The Indifferent (‘De onverschillige’) oproept, de liedcyclus op het album Cerulean Orbits ...Het Franse ensemble The Hermes Experiment zucht. De klarinet en harp strooien hun noten uit als een windgong in een zomerbries. Sopraan Héloïse Werner intoneert messcherp. Ze is pas 33 jaar, maar in haar stem schuilt de passie en het zelfvertrouwen van een vrouw die alles heeft meegemaakt. In het duizelingwekkende Cerulean Orbits staan ferme, tastbare vioolstreken centraal. Een piano omringt ze als een wolk ruimtegruis, maar stort soms als een komeet omlaag. Suite bestaat uit acht complexe, natuurlijk klinkende miniaturen voor klarinet, cello, viool en piano, door het Schotse Red Note Ensemble gespeeld met geestdrift en technische perfectie. In de verte echoot de hallucinerende muziek van Olivier Messiaen.

'Helix Reflection (2013), for flute and B-flat clarinet, works in quite a different manner. It employs harmonic stasis, microtonal inflections, glissandi and variations in vibrato to produce a shimmering, hypnotic sound world ... The Indifferent is a five-movement song cycle setting of the titular poem by Judith Bishop (b. 1972), scored for the very effective combination of soprano voice, clarinet, harp and double bass. The poem’s complex sea imagery, long understood as a metaphor for emotional turbulence, is reflected in Stanley’s score, which lends the work a beautiful, ancient quality. Two chamber suites, composed with the particular strengths of the Red Note Ensemble in mind, complete an impressive program of works characterised by a sinewy complexity that the composer attributes at least in part to her early exposure to her mother’s work in textiles. This quite wonderful textural quality of Stanley’s work is complemented by a stunning recording, rich and spacious, from Edinburgh’s 17th-century Greyfriars Kirk'