(2021) Mirla - Solitaire (The Virtue of Patience)              


Review:
Emily Mirla Harrison distinguishes her debut album under the Mirla name by amplifying its intensely personal dimension. To that end, the Newcastle, Australia-based pianist has fashioned a tapestry conceived and constructed around family history, specifically her maternal grandparents’ WWII experiences. Spoken word passages, drawn from diaries and letters, merge with electronic elements, field recordings, and musical episodes heavy on strings and piano to form sweeping movements that captivate for the dramatic story they tell. After composing much of it in Bali and Perth during periods of lockdown and quarantine, Harrison recorded its material at Church Street Studios in Sydney. In detail, the narrative concerns Harrison’s then-seventeen-year-old grandmother, Mirla Wilkinson, who was separated by war from her nineteen-year-old sweetheart, Arthur Bancroft, and, agonizing over his fate, wondered if he’d died at sea or otherwise. Her fear intensified when letters she’d sent came back to her in a bundle, all of them unopened and stamped with ‘Return to sender.’ Reunited after two years, she learned that he’d miraculously survived two ship sinkings plus internment in a Japanese POW camp. The album title thus refers to the ‘waiting game’ endured by the lover left behind and the hope, stoicism, and resilience needed to survive. In dealing with experiences of loneliness, longing, and endurance, the parallels to our ongoing pandemic situation are obvious. Aside from this project, Harrison’s amassed credits on numerous Australian productions, including feature films, short films, and documentaries. Three years in the making, Solitaire (The Virtue of Patience) features her on piano joined by Hannah Oblikov (cello) and Jessica Arlo Irish (viola and violin). Text excerpts from Arthur’s War (Penguin Books, Australia) are woven into the recording, as are poetry passages by Christopher Gorman, Harrison’s husband. Stylistically, the recording sits comfortably within the neo-classical genre, which with the vocal elements added assumes a pronounced dream-like quality. Listeners enamoured of the work of Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds, and Max Richter should find much to like about Harrison’s project. At album’s start, “Prelude Solus” underlays two layers of speaking voices with dramatic strings and piano expressions, the soundscape encapsulating in three minutes the largely plaintive tone of the recording and conveying the longing of one lover separated from another. As elaborately detailed as “Prelude Solus” and other pieces are, some, such as the subsequent “Longing,” feature solo piano only. Stripping the melancholic music down enhances the recording, however, when heartache is expressed so nakedly in this fragile lament. “Letters Returned” briefly reinstates the multi-layered format, with dusty piano and strings again joined by Harrison’s reading of letter passages plus poetry. Instrumentals provide a compelling counterpoint to those featuring texts. With a title evoking Proust, “In Search of Lost Time” casts a poignant spell in an arrangement for piano and two violas that conveys the ache of Wilkinson’s pining. As lovely is “Reflections in the House of Mirrors,” an elegiac waltz that sees piano, violin, and cello augmented by field recordings of thunder and tolling bells. The solo piano setting “Queen of Hearts” is by turns triumphant and defiant, its passion rooted in Harrison’s desire to decry the futility of war and honour the strength of the women left behind. Darker tonalities seep into “Work on Konyu Cutting” when a recording of Arthur Bancroft’s own voice is paired with ominous piano-and-strings writing and supplemental elements (a shakuhachi flute, for example) to convey his nightmarish experience as a Japanese POW. Hopeful by comparison are “Mirla’s Prayer” and the lyrical piano piece “Patience” for the way they convey her fervent belief in Arthur’s eventual return. Capping the release is the radiant “Nihon Sun,” which couples the speaking voice of Mirla Bancroft with violin, cello, and piano. In a poignant conclusion, the music swells majestically as the now elderly woman recounts the first time she saw Arthur after his return from war. Solitaire (The Virtue of Patience) comprises thirteen tracks, all of which work together to amplify the work’s character and share its story. As fundamental as music and spoken word are to the project, atmospheric sounds of rain, ticking clocks, crashing waves, footsteps, and others are also critical to the overall effect when these details facilitate a deeper immersion into the project’s historical period. — Textura





Track List:
1.Prelude Solus 02:57
2.Longing 04:02
3.Letters Returned 00:51
4.In Search of Lost Time 03:25
5.Lessons of War 01:08
6.Reflections in the House of Mirrors 03:32
7.Waltz on Civvy Street 02:50
8.Asunder (By Sunda Strait) 03:34
9.Work on Konyu Cutting 05:10
10.Queen of Hearts 03:21
11.Mirla's Prayer 03:58
12.Patience 04:15
13.Nihon Sun 05:38


Media Report:
Genre: ambient, classical
Country: Australia
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits


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