The London Sinfonietta’s last Southbank Centre programme of the year was bookended by works it had freshly commissioned, from Jack Sheen, who also conducted the concert, and from the Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė. Sheen opened with his own Phant Heap Render, three short movements of ghostly string repetitions and sustained notes from the wind that gradually sink in pitch, against a harmonic background blurred by microtones. It creates music that moves slowly on the surface, while internally seeming busy.
Where Sheen’s textures are sparse and fragile, Janulytė’s Sleeping Patterns presents a dense, constantly changing musical flux. Much of her output consists of pieces for monochrome collections of instruments, so writing for the multicoloured lineup of the Sinfonietta and their co-commissioners, Ensemble Intercontemporain and Remix Ensemble, offered her a new challenge.
