Well within the technical abilities of many amateur and semi-professional choirs, Cresswell's unaccompanied choral work The Belly of the Whale (1997) is a song about freedom and deliverance through the medium of its spiritual text. Initially spare and searching, in its second, faster section Cresswell adds a dose of contemporary harmony to the gospel tradition, at once oblique, unsettling and rousing. This is a rewarding repertoire choice for both a concert setting and church context.
Matthew Greenall, The Singer, June/July 2005
Lyell Cresswell's name is most likely to be familiar in Scotland, where he lives and works, and New Zealand, where he was born and where he first learned his craft as a composer. Sixty last year, he has contributed individual wok of quiet distinction for several decades now, while arguably lesser talents with more gift for self-promotion have attracted greater attention.
Cresswell's unaccompanied choral work The Belly of the Whale, scored for SSAATTBB voices and now published by Promethean Editions, is a song about fredom and deliverance through the medium of its Spiritual text. Cresswell's quirky setting, initially spare and searching, reiterating a few basic motifs, becomes in its second, faster section a kind of gloss in contemporary harmony on the gospel tradition, at once oblique, unsettling and, as the music gets faster and louder, rousing. Well within the technical compass of many amateur as well as semi-professional choirs, this could be a rewarding repertoire choice in either a concert setting, for which it was presumably intended, or a church context.
