Translucence

We Say...

Review by John Schaefer

Derek Jarman kept a diary while making his final films, trying to grow a garden near the inhospitable shore while slowly dying of AIDS. Donna McKevitt worked on Jarman’s film Blue as a member of the Goth/madrigal group Miranda Sex Garden. After Jarman’s death, she set a number of the poems that appeared in his diary for voices, viola and cello. The resulting song cycle, Translucence, is bleak, haunting, briefly manic and often heartbreakingly beautiful. And controversial — this album startled classical music fans because of the Parental Advisory sticker on its cover, a result of Jarman using a certain naughty word, and using in between the names of the four Gospel writers. And because Jarman rarely signed any contracts, but instead preferred to work on a handshake basis, the whole project was scuttled shortly after its release when Jarman’s executor decided not give permission for the release.

Emerging finally from legal limbo, Translucence is best appreciated as an organic whole, a peculiarly reserved and very English expression of quiet rage, sharp humor, irrepressible desire and a keen appreciation of love, beauty and the transitory nature of both. Jarman’s text "Sebastiane" is translated into Latin, and is sung by the splendid English countertenor Michael Chance — its lyrical, almost erotic text matched by the two strings in what is the album’s soaring centerpiece. But the real soul of the cycle is "I Walk In This Garden," McKevitt’s gripping setting of Jarman’s farewell. Pairing England’s leading new music singer, Melanie Pappenheim, to a single cello, McKevitt aims for the heart and doesn’t miss.