2011, 120′
Orchestra

Commission: The Royal Ballet/The National Ballet of Canada
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

Press
“First credit has to go to Joby Talbot’s score. Driven by a huge percussion section, with weird and wayward textures, vividly descriptive melodies and a shimmer of emotion, this is music that is not only sophisticated but also danceable.” Judith Mackrell, The Guardian

“Mr Talbot’s score is the trump card for Alice. It’s a dazzling array of melodies and shimmering percussion, usefully atmospheric and dancey, yet sophisticated enough to feel like more than a mere support.” Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times

“Joby Talbot’s score uses a collage of genres — from Broadway to Tchaikovsky with a twist — with a thumping percussion giving it an exhilarating unhinged quality. When combined with Talbot’s slightly deranged score, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland feels like the first ever authentically 21st-century story ballet.” Frances Perraudin, TIME

“Joby Talbot’s superb score [is] arguably the best new ballet music I have heard in years.” Giannandrea Poesio, The Spectator

“The real engine powering the show is Joby Talbot’s score, a storming piece of work spiced with exotic woodwind, James Bond brass, and an ironmongers’-worth of percussion, deployed with thrilling climactic control.” Jenny Gilbert, The Independent on Sunday

“An out-and-out success is Joby Talbot’s wonderful score, vivid, eclectic, lyrical, dramatic, full of colour and apt to characters and incident… Late in Act I, [is] the full-scale corps de ballet number: a lovely and populous Flower Waltz (with Talbot pulling out all the stops in his luscious music).” David Dougill, The Sunday Times

“For his industry, zeal and vigorously eclectic story-painting – with Prokofiev jokes and even Minkus jokes – [Talbot] is man of the match.” Ismene Brown, The Arts Desk

2009, 75′
Strings, harp, percussion, harmonium, piano

Commission: CCN Roubaix for Carolyn Carlson
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

2007
Film score

Director: Garth Jennings
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

2007, 45′
Vocals, strings, electronics

Commission: The Paris Opera Ballet
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

Press
“Guardian film blog Trash‘s London Film Festival awards:

Best doc: Frederick Wiseman’s La Danse: Le Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris
Best music: Joby Talbot’s electronic score to Wayne McGregor’s Genus piece, as shown in La Danse.” Jason Solomons, The Observer, 1 November 2009

“[Genus] has a vibrant electronic and acoustic score by Joby Talbot and Deru.” Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, 23 November 2009

2006, 23′
Trumpet, orchestra

Commission: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Turku Philharmonic Orchestras, soloist Alison Balsom, trumpet.
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

Press
“It is a lavish, panoramic piece of Americana inspired by a drive through the untamed expanses of the north Californian landscape, whose musical moods mirror the quicksilver changes of the desert climate.” Alfred Hickling, The Guardian, 2 November 2011

2005, 60′ (Roncesvalles 18′, Burgos 15′, Leon 12′, Santiago 19′)
Chorus, crotales

Commission: Tenebrae
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

Press
“Joby Talbot’s ambitious a cappella Path of Miracles is little short of a musical miracle itself. In its distinctive style, it is a major statement and supremely assured. Tenebrae – which has already recorded it for release later in the year – have surely got a major hit; I would go as far to suggest that Talbot’s “Path of Miracles” is to the first decade of the 21st-century what Arvo Pärt’s “Passio” was twenty years earlier.” Nick Breckenfield, www.classicalsource.com, 17 July 2005

“An evocative odyssey” David Rose, The Times, 22 April 2006

“Joby Talbot has been making quite a name for himself recently. Path of Miracles can only add to that reputation: it’s a real achievement. Talbot’s musical vocabulary is wide ranging, including as it does Taiwanese vocal techniques (providing a haunting beginning), reflective refrains that suggest Pärt, a dash of blue close-harmony and, last but not least, an underlying preoccupation with the Anglican choral tradition and plainchant.” Ivan Moody, International Record Review, 01 June 2006

“I predict you will never have heard anything like the first two minutes of this piece: Tenebrae’s voices rise in pitch in a long, throaty glissando, like the gradual tensioning of an enormous cable. Path of Miracles is an interesting musical journey for composer, performers and listeners alike.” John Brunning, Classic FM Magazine, 01 July 2006

“This is a work of remarkable range and assurance. ‘Roncesvalles’ opens with eerie, long-held tones in the bass register, gradually hauled up to a radiant chord in the higher voices. The passage was inspired by a technique used in traditional Taiwanese music but one could just as well imagine it as a synthesis of Ligeti and Pärt. The movement goes on to describe Herod’s execution of St James, and the eventual discovery of the body at Compostela, in a rich, agile, vibrant evocation of medieval dances and hymns. Throughout the work Talbot achieves a similarly fertile accommodation between ancient shapes and contemporary colours, moulding often challenging parts into a luminous and uplifting whole.” Barry Witherden, The Gramophone, 01 August 2006

2007, 25′
Orchestra

Commission: This arrangement commissioned by The Royal Ballet
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

Press
“The music swung between TV cop-show jazz and what sounded like a sweeping film score. The White Stripes’ songs were just recognisable. It was fast and furious and totally gripping.” Emma Brockes, The Guardian, 18 November 2006

“It is Joby Talbot’s orchestration of [three songs by the White Stripes], along with his own music, that has the audience pinned to their seats, and elicited from choreographer Wayne McGregor some of the most thrilling dance the Royal has performed in ages.” Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, 20 November 2006

“Joby Talbot’s wondrous score, part strident orchestration of the White Stripes, part his own more meditative compositions, is immediately seductive.” Debra Craine, The Times, 5 February 2008

“Joby Talbot’s music (a major ingredient in originally making the work a hit in Britain), with its loud-quiet-loud structure, harsh surface and pulpy core, creates the atmosphere” Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, 25 June 2009

“Added to this delirious frenzy of movement is the fantastic score that includes three songs by the rock group White Stripes and four pieces composed by Joby Talbot, all arranged for a huge orchestra. Maestro David Briskin and his players had a field day letting it all hang out with the White Stripes, and pulling back for the more reflective Talbot.” Paula Citron, The Globe and Mail, 25 November 2010

2007, 35′
Strings, winds, harp, timpani, percussion, piano

Commission: XL Recordings commissioned these arrangements of ten songs by the White Stripes
Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

2002, 35′
Violin, cello, piano

Publisher: Chester Music Ltd

Recording available on the album The Dying Swan: Music for 1 to 7 players