Music and neuroscience combine in a symphony of philosophical heft and power.

In his booklet note to this new release, Carl Vine writes: “The term Enchanted Loom was coined in the 1930s by British neuroscientist Sir Charles Sherrington to depict the function of the human brain as it weaves together our personal impression of the outside world and constructs, from raw sensory data, our internal sense of location, identity, and ‘mind’.

The brain is indeed a miraculous thing. For example, I still remember the excitement of hearing for the first time Carl Vine’s Symphony No 7, Scenes from Daily Life , in 2009 in a WASO performance which went on to win the Classical Music Awards’ Best Performance of an Australian Composition. And in my brain, it now forms a bridge between ABC’s set of Complete Symphonies, which at the time of recording numbered six, and this new recording featuring Vine’s Symphony No 8, The Enchanted Loom .

The other works included here are Vine’s First Symphony, MicroSymphony (1986); V (2002); Concerto for Orchestra (2014); and Smith’s Alchemy (2001 – a bonus track for digital versions only). All were recorded by the MSO under Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis in 2018, during Vine’s time with the orchestra as Resident Composer.

The Enchanted Loom was commissioned by the MSO and this is a recording of its world premiere. As with most program music – and I use the term somewhat loosely here – it is always instructive to listen to the work first before reading the program notes and then after reading them. Both are usually very different experiences. In this case, the first was as thrilling as the second. And, as it turns out, as representative of Vine’s concept as the second. For ultimately the brain as biological entity and expressed as mind is as abstract a “thing” as a symphony.

In the first movement The Loom Awakens from the darkness of low tones, higher-pitched instruments including chimes like sentient sparks (Sherrington’s “millions of flashing shuttles”) that gradually coalesce and form distinct patterns across orchestral sections. Episodes link to form “narratives”.

The work then steadily progresses, without breaks between movements, from the startling intermind portrait, The Social Fabric , in which conversations break out into a gentle waltz, through the more dramatic and unsettling Sheer Invention and rolling ecstatic thunder of Euphoria to perhaps the most existential, philosophical movement of all, the final Imagining Infinity . It’s an extraordinary performance, exhibiting such a sympathetically contingent perfection, that I wish I’d been present at the concert.

Of the remaining works here, Concerto for Orchestra is the most substantial, and a real showcase for Vine’s fluent orchestrating and dialogic momentum. The MicroSymphony is a marvel of density and compactness, like a sonnet, while the orchestral fanfare V (the Roman numeral referring to the length of the piece) counterbalances in its straightforwardness and sense of occasion the more complex yet orchestrally less colourful (it is for strings along) Smith’s Alchemy .

So: fine performances of works by one of Australia’s most cerebral and yet most accessible composers. A welcome addition to the catalogue, as they used to say. 

Composer: Carl Vine Works: The Enchanted Loom and Other Orchestral Works Performers: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis Label: ABC Classic ABCL2201

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