DANIEL PIORO - SAINT BOY

Giuseppe Tartini – Devil’s Trill Sonata

Nick Martin – Kołysanka

Hildegard von Bingen – O Ecclesia (arr. Tom Coult)

Lilja María Ásmundsdóttir – A Glimpse of an Open Heart

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber – The Agony in the Garden

Laurence Crane – 2020 Music

Daniel Pioro – Saint Boy

J.S. Bach - Erbarm’ dich mein, o Herre Gott (arr. Daniel Pioro)

Saint Boy is a collection of ancient and contemporary, sacred and secular music for solo violin, chamber organ and string quartet brought together by violinist Daniel Pioro.

Pioro describes it as “a collection of psalms and hymns seen through a kaleidoscope of new and risky music” and it is his ardent advocacy of the experimental and the new that shines through and frames an album which includes works he composed, arranged, and commissioned.

Woven throughout the tapestry of Saint Boy are three separate sonic entities. The organ, the violin, and the string quartet. The hollow drone of the chamber organ, a sound which connects us with music of the past, is discovered anew with contemporary works that anchor us firmly in the present. Its multi-coloured intonation and resonance when combined with the song of drawn strings (and all the fragile partials this sound contains) creates a bed of sound over which Pioro’s violin sings, at times hoarse with emotion and at others crystal pure.

A devotion to sound lies at the heart of this album. Recorded in such a way that the vulnerability (almost the heartbeat) of the violin is heard, Pioro invites the listener to sit within the four walls of his violin, to be enveloped by its voice, and to have the inner workings and mysteries of the instrument revealed.

From the liturgical ritual of Hildegard von Bingen’s O Ecclesia, to the spare beauty of Laurence Crane’s 2020 Music via the fiendish brilliance of Giuseppe Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata, Saint Boy is a demonstration of Pioro’s technical virtuosity, imagination, and belief in the storytelling potential of music.

It features Katherine Tinker (chamber organ), Jonathan Morton (violin), Clio Gould (violin), Oliver Wilson (viola), and Clare O’Connell (cello).

Recorded at Platoon Studios, London

Mixed and Mastered by Ian Dearden and Daniel Halford

Produced by Ian Dearden

“I would like the listener to imagine they are walking through a cathedral for the first time. Each piece is a stained glass window telling its own story”
—Daniel Pioro

Released digitally on Platoon on 13 January. 2023

Spotify / Apple Music