“

Make no mistake, this is deeply serious, aggressively cutting-edge music that demands enor­mous reserves of patience and a highly developed sense of adventure.

” —Jim Svejda

“

I imagine that Gorton enjoys a good joke. In the landscape portrait for piano quintet, Fosdyke Wash , a sighing cello part is marked “like distant agricultural machinery.” At that point, the cello sounds like a mewling chainsaw at a far remove. Starting calmly over gently sustained piano pitches (using an ebow), a scordatura quartet […]

” —Grant Chu Covell

“

Orfordness may lie geographically in Benjamin Britten country, but the music inhabits a totally different landscape. There is a detailed programme underlying Gorton’s music, which is comprehensively explained in the booklet. [Fosdyke Wash] is music of a dangerous beauty which achieves a rapt stillness. It is the most recent music on the disc, and perhaps shows the composer turning in a new direction.

” —Paul Corfield Godfrey

“

David Gorton’s program is wild, mysteri­ous, paranoid, dense, difficult, and rarely understated or straight-forward.

” —Kraig Lamper

“

Gorton is clearly a clever chap… and uses instrumentation, electronics and samples. Discordant and unsettling.

” —Jeremy Condliffe

“

Gorton makes no concessions to his performers — not that those heard here require any ‘easy options’ when it comes to realising such intricate and exacting pieces. Excellent sound and detailed notes also complement the interpretative conviction needed for this unequivocal music.

” —Richard Whitehouse

“

[Austerity Measures] is not an easy listen but a fascinating and, at times, revealing one… some unbelievably fine virtuosic oboe passages, brilliantly played. This is a fine disc that shows David Gorton to be a composer of subtlety who brings fine detail and lovely textures and sonorities.

” —Bruce Reader

“

[In Orfordness] the careful sculpting of sound and space creates effective musical drama.. The nature of the score [of Austerity Measures II] leaves a large amount of creative decision-making up to the performer, not only in terms of expressive choices, but also in regard to harmony and timbre, due to the nature of multiphonic formation. Redgate takes full advantage in a fierce and driving performance. [Fosdyke Wash] is an abstractly evocative work, which stands in compelling contrast to the disc’s other pieces. Of all the pieces on this disc, the [cello] sonata most shows us that, as Gorton says, ‘even pre­recorded and electronic music is gesturally and visually meaningful.

” —Matthew Hammond