Composer of the week: Richard Whalley

Richard Whalley lectures in composition at the University of Manchester, where he is the founder and director of new music ensemble, Vaganza. As a composer, he was a finalist in the 1992 BBC Young Musician of the Year Composers’ Award, and has had works selected for Gaudeamus Music Week in Amsterdam (2001), Ensemble Aleph’s Forum for Composers in France (2003), and the International Society for Contemporary Music’s World Music Days in Flanders (2012). He is also active as a pianist, and has premiered works by Camden Reeves and Kevin Malone. He teaches composition and performs chamber music at the ARAM-Poitou Summer School in France each summer. He studied at University of York with Roger Marsh and Nicola Lefanu, and at Harvard University with Mario Davidovsky and Joshua Fineberg.

His Six Songs of Old Japanese Wisdom will be performed in the next LM recital (Saturday 4^th August) by Paul Carey Jones (baritone) and Ian Ryan (piano).

Steve Crowther: Richard, I am assuming that Six Songs of Old Japanese Wisdom draws its inspiration from the East and Zen in particular?

Richard Whalley: It was mainly to do with the fact I was exploring poetry at the time, and found myself discovering Haiku. I came across these wonderful texts by Issa, a Japanese poet who lived in the late 18^th / early 19^th century. He had a very difficult life, but found solace in nature, and I find the way he captures details very poignant. I also liked the idea of setting miniatures to music, because they allow so much space for reflection.

SC: Can you describe the songs to us?

RW: There’s six short songs, the last one of which comes back (more or less) at the end. There’s a sort of arch-like form overall, whereby certain songs in the second half allude to those in the first half.

SC: Can you describe the process of setting them?

RW: Tricky to remember that far back, though I remember I got a lot of enjoyment out of writing these because the previous piece I had written was a huge piece in which I got terribly stuck! It was fun choosing the texts, and organising how they might fit together in a cycle. I was exploring a lot of ninth-based harmony at the time, and also ways of getting bits of material to cycle round and round, sometimes in layers that go at different rates. Like much of my music, melody is often prominent, and I rely a lot on my ear and intuitions.

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you sing during the compositional process?

RW: Indeed – my fingers can be more spontaneous than my head. I’m a hopeless singer, but when setting words then of course I sing the vocal line to myself to know how it feels.

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a voice in mind?

RW: It’s a huge help, but in this case I didn’t really have a specific voice in mind, so focused on writing what I thought would work. As for the piano I can’t help writing for the way I play – I think that’s inevitable. I wanted – and failed – to write music that isn’t too difficult to play, but I think Ian and Paul are doing a wonderful job. It’s such a joy when performers know the music well enough to make it their own.

SC: How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?

RW: That’s a difficult question! I wish I had a snappy answer to it, as it’s what people always want to know. What makes it even harder to answer is the necessity of change from one piece to another, as none of the composers I admire most stood still.

What’s fundamental is that composition is so darn difficult that it’s important to find ways of making it fun. For me that means finding fresh challenges, different situations and constantly changing. That’s not to say there aren’t consistencies - perhaps certain melodic turns of phrase, certain types of gesture a certain harmonic richness, but I think the colours and moods of different compositions are very different. One thing I can say is that I’m very interested in writing music that is intimate, and music that is slightly wacky, and I enjoy the creative tension between these two qualities.

Actually, a much better answer to this question than hearing me ramble on, is to listen to the actual music: there’s a number of extracts on my website, and some of my music (including these songs) is available on CD.

SC: What motivates you to compose?

RW: Essentially, I have to, otherwise I get frustrated. My love of great music is an important part of this, along with the desire to express something unique. The world doesn’t need any more mediocre music, so there’s only any point in composing if the music is distinctive or innovative in some way… But just think how grey the world would be if it weren’t for Beethoven, or Ligeti (etc. etc….)

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

RW: Above all, I admire Lachenmann. He’s just such an original thinker, and his music is completely unlike anyone else’s on the planet. For the sake of answering this question, it’s a shame that Ligeti, Xenakis, Nancarrow, Nono and Stockhausen are no longer alive, as I get so much inspiration from their ideas. I expect (and hope) that there’s younger composers alive now whose creativity is in the same league as above, but I don’t know who they are. I hope that composers continue to innovate as they did in the twentieth century, even though their concerns now are so different. There’s a lot of focus nowadays on expanding the definition of music to be more all-encompassing, which is potentially exciting, as long as the music itself is innovative. The twenty-first century has a lot to live up to in comparison with the previous one

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

RW: To tell the truth, composers I’d like a beer with aren’t necessarily the same as composers whose music blows me away. That said, I’m very lucky because I did once have a beer with Lachenmann! He made me feel like I know very little, but in the best possible way. From the past, of course it would have been amazing to have met Beethoven, but it might have been more entertaining to have a beer with Berlioz!

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

RW: Ok, first the disclaimers. Ask me a different day, you’ll get a different set of answers. I’m also conscious most of what’s below are big works, when in reality I also love miniatures. I also love hearing music I didn’t know before, so a desert island would be torture from that point of view. This is hard, but let’s say:

1. Bach Goldberg Variations

2. Beethoven Op. 130 quartet (with Grosse Fuge).

3. Schubert G major quartet

4. Schumann Dichterliebe

5. Nielsen Symphony no. 5

6. Sibelius Symphony no. 7

7. Ligeti Chamber Concerto

8. Nancarrow Player Piano Study no. 7

If only one, I guess the Beethoven.

SC: …and a book?

RW: As above, would hate to be restricted to one book. I can’t decide between David Mitchell ‘Cloud Atlas’, Margaret Atwood ‘The Blind Assassin’ or Iris Murdoch ‘The Sea, the Sea’

SC: Film?

RW: Am so out of touch with cinema since my children were born. Maybe Pulp Fiction?

SC: … and a luxury item?

RW: Somewhere warm and sunny to live, with a good stock of Belgian beer. Is that allowed?

Composer of the week: Timothy Raymond

Timothy Raymond is the former Head of Composition and Contemporary Music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he taught for 15 years. His work has been performed both in the UK and overseas and broadcast by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Based in Ilkley, he is currently pursuing his own independent projects together with work stemming from his recent appointment as Director of Music at the Priory Church of Bolton Abbey.

From dark to dark will be premiered at the next LM recital (Saturday 4^th August) by Paul Carey Jones (baritone) and Ian Ryan (piano).

Steve Crowther: Can you describe the songs to us?

Timothy Raymond: Each of these three ‘pieces for baritone and piano’ pursues a different approach to the setting of texts that relate to Bede (673-735), his work and the notion of ‘from…to…’, of (spiritual) journeying. The central narrative, The flight of the sparrow, is literally that, from out of the darkness, across the banquet hall and out again the other side. The first ‘piece’ sets Bradford-born poet Chris McCully’s translation from the Old English of Bede’s Death Song in a quite intense and expressionistic way. The last song sets one of McCully’s original poems – a short, beautifully crafted two verse meditation put into the mouth of Bede’s Copyist on the transitory nature of their work (‘..we work between space and space – And both are dark’). It’s the nearest I’ve ever got to writing a ‘straight’ song. It’s even got a constant pulse – well…almost! The other thing I should mention is that the piano part is quite elaborate (almost orchestral) and on an equal level with the voice.

SC: Can you describe the process of setting them?

TR: The ‘process’ overlaps with my answer to your first question and with the discovery of the texts. It’s seamless and osmotic. If I had to sectionalise, It could be described as an initial period of research - including a visit to Bede’s ruined monastery in Newcastle; next: some thought about the central sparrow episode and a decision to use Wordsworth’s poetic paraphrase of Bede’s book; then research into Old English poetry and, through that, my discovery of the work of Chris McCully (which deeply impressed me as a whole) and plainchant sung while Bede was dying (later subsumed into the fabric of the piece); after that, the amassing of musical ideas and material (effectively, the mapping of a particular musical world); and finally the conception and structuring of three essentially different bits of that world, the third being something very like a song!

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you sing during the compositional process?

TR: I don’t use the piano at all during the initial notating of musical ideas and I only use it as a check to the ear at an advanced level of the composing process. I’m a relatively fluent pianist and can improvise – both skills that I’m keen to dissociate completely from my composing, where musical thought, its structuring and symbolic representation is, for me, the key to a degree of control and precision which would otherwise be unavailable. I sing – especially where voices are involved. The traditional nomenclature and identification in harmony and counterpoint of ‘voices’ with ‘lines’ remains supremely relevant and continues to be a creative spur to cultivated music. Thus, singing takes on a permanent symbolic rôle in a lot of music. As Frost says, ‘The aim was song…’

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a voice in mind?

TR: Very important for me. Composition tends to be an appropriately isolated activity of the mind. It benefits immensely from the empirical and practical input of performers at any and all stages. In this case, Paul’s advice regarding aspects of his ‘instrument’ and some knowledge gleaned from people who knew his and Ian’s performing work, together with clips of Paul’s singing on the web, were very helpful in helping to determine the nature of the writing.

SC: How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?

TR: I approach the composition of a new piece as an imaginative/musical adventure as far as possible peculiar to that piece alone. I don’t regard stylistic consistency from piece to piece as an ideal but, that said, it’s obvious (to me, at least) that certain characteristics have remained constant in my work: a concern with harmonic consistency together with full integration and inter-reliance of all the compositional parameters both in controlled flow and direct contrast of ideas. This is informed by the conviction that systems don’t guarantee any interest whatsoever but also that on no account should they be allowed to inhibit fantasy and imagination. I have an abiding interest in the necessity of anarchy in all walks of life (if you can forgive that paradox). I don’t believe that music has to be anything at all. The moment someone pontificates that music has to contain this, that or the other in order to be significant, it’s in my nature to try very hard to exclude that ‘this’, ‘that’ or ‘other’ from my next piece! For that reason, I prefer people to keep their opinions to themselves! However, I have to say that for certain types of musical expression and certain types of musical discourse to become viable, hierarchies of values need to be established amongst the elements of the composer’s musical meta-language.

SC: What motivates you to compose?

TR:  It’s the only thing I think I can do which I believe defines me as a worker. I’m absolutely fascinated and enthralled by composing and I like solitude.  Composing’s an act, like playing an instrument, a performance which you need to develop skills – technique – to bring off. It isn’t a branch of academe or a set of tricks or dodges but a superb form of thought in action – one which doesn’t mean anything in a strictly linguistic sense but one which I think we’d be poorer without. It’s capable of many types of power and expression ‘[w]hereof one cannot speak…’.

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

TR: I find it hard to identify with anybody now – least of all my self - but I’ve loved and admired the music of Boulez, Carter, Dutilleux and Jonathan Harvey for 40 years or less – together with the music of my teacher, John Lambert (now sadly deceased). Somewhat younger composers such as Bainbridge, Anderson and Manoury also come to mind. They all write the most extraordinarily beautiful music. Reich is the only one of the minimalist and post-minimalist generation whose music held any interest for me (but, for me, nothing much later than the mid-1980s when his baseball cap became inseparable from his head).

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

TR: Charles Ives, simply because you probably could have had a beer and a chat with him. And you could probably avoid talking about music with him too, if you wanted. He is, in fact, one of my very favourite composers.

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

TR: This is hard (because I can’t get many composers mentioned above or Sibelius 5, Bartok’s 4^th Quartet, Varèse (anything) or another Carter piece or really anything much in there) but I love being pretentious as you can tell, so here goes: 1) something from the Netherlands polyphonists: let’s say Obrecht, Missa Maria Zart, primarily because it’s beautiful and, then because its structural complexities are so fascinating and absorbing; 2) J.S. Bach – almost anything, but the B Minor Mass will certainly do; 3) Wagner, Götterdämmerung; 4) Brahms, 4^th Symphony; 5) Fauré, 2^nd Piano Quintet in C minor; 6) Dutilleux, Métaboles; 7) Ohana, 2^nd String Quartet; 8) Carter, Duo (for violin and piano).

First choice (er…): Fauré, 2^nd Piano Quintet in C minor because of its profound beauty; the first movement’s journey into blinding light; its modernity, subtlety and poignant expressivity.

SC: …and a book?

TR: Robert Frost,The Poetry of Robert Frost.

SC: Film?

TR: A Sunday in the Country (Un dimanche à la campagne, Bertrand Tavernier, 1984).

SC: … and a luxury item?

TR: A massive, well-stocked wine cellar containing good French reds for the most part (though I wouldn’t say no to a few hundred assorted Belgian beers too) and a bottle-opener. That should keep me going.

SC: Timothy Raymond, thank you.

Pierre Boulez

‘Here we go and here we go and here we go again…’ Status Quo

To its credit  BBC Three is undertaking a major retrospective of composer Pierre Boulez  And not before time. Boulez has been a constant in modern, contemporary music for a staggering sixty-six years. His contributions  (and not always comfortable ones!) have included a huge backlog of recordings, forever shedding insight into the music of, for example, Wagner, Berg, Debussy and Stravinsky. 

His clear analytical understanding of Anton Webern’s compositional processes were a revelation, allowing this great music, to put it simply, to make sense. His recording of the complete works of Webern is a landmark: a real jewel and a true labour of love.

But it is as a composer that Boulez will leave his most significant legacy. 

Like Webern, Boulez’ output is concentrated, meticulously worked and reworked to meet his incredibly high standard and artistic integrity. This week at the Proms we will have chance to hear a performance of his groundbreaking Le marteau sans maitre (Thursday 26^th July), a seventies piece for seven cellos, Messagesquisse (Monday 23^rd), and the 1998 Anthemes 2 for violin and electronics (Tuesday 24^th) to name some of the performances we can hear live. 

And live music is where Boulez comes into his own. I remember going to a concert in London (late 80’s) where there was a Boulez retrospective. I cannot recall the whole programme ( a stunning performance of Eclat/Multiples and an amazing orchestration of an earlier piano piece, Notations), but it was the colours, the incredibly unique and  creative sound world which knocked me sideways, anyway, I digress…

And what is the proms also bigging-up? Beethoven and YET ANOTHER cycle of his symphonies (West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim). Great works, absolutely, but…well there you go.

And so who have the BBC selected as their the ‘composer of the week’?: King Ludvig, rockin’ all over the world, YET AGAIN.

So we say...http://bit.ly/17SM88.

Enjoy, Steve

Songs Now CD Launch at Late Music

Saturday 4th August 2012

In the last ten years or so, I have been noticing a gradual but perceptible increase in both the quantity and the quality of songs being written by British composers. I am not sure why this is. However, in recent decades, the influence of the European avant-garde has receded, the influence of rock music has become ever stronger and British composers seem to have become more at ease with stylistic diversity as well as with their own national musical heritage. I suspect that these factors have all played a part in creating circumstances that are more favourable for songwriting than have existed for some time.

In 2007, a few of us discussed this and decided to form the short-lived 21st Century Song Project. Several new song cycles were written for this including four that appear on this CD – Power, Armstrong Whalley and Crowther. The strength of these songs further convinced me things were moving in this direction. However, we found it difficult to secure funding and were only able to deliver two concerts.

In 2009, the NMC label released their excellent quadruple Songbook CD, featuring songs by over 100 composers. The release of this CD prompted discussions in the national media about the possibility of a revival of British Song. This seemed a good omen and made me more determined than even to do a significant song project. The previous year – 2008 - I had formed the Grimsby St Hughs Festival. The aims of this Festival are to bring professional classical music concerts to North East Lincolnshire and to programme and promote new music that is relatively accessible but has a 21st century ‘sensibility’, so to speak. Now, inspired by the NMC songbook, I decided to devote a day of the Festival to 20th and 21st Century British song.

The Song Day took place at Grimsby Minster on Saturday 25th September 2010 and comprised three recitals – soprano and piano, tenor and piano and baritone and piano – and an excellent talk on British song by Peter Reynolds. Each concert was an approximately equal mix of early 20th century songs and 21st century ones. Moreover, we did our best to programme some of the very finest composers of 20th century songs and the recitals included works by Britten, Warlock, Quilter, Walton, W Denis Browne (a stunning songwriter who is ridiculously under-rated), Bridge, Finzi, Gurney and Butterworth. The 21st century songs included a generous amount of the songs on this CD. We even had an audience vote – just a bit of fun really – as to whether people preferred the 20th or 21st century music and the 21st century stuff won by 8%! One person wrote that he preferred the 21st century stuff ‘even though’ he was born in 1936!

The songday was so successful that there was a widespread feeling that we should not leave it at that but, rather, capture the new songs on CD. Funding from the Arts Council and the Festival’s reserves made this possible and we were delighted when Meridian agreed to release the CD. The CD was certainly a joy to make. The performers, the composers, the engineer and the staff at the National Centre for Early Music in York – where the CD was recorded – and at Meridian Records have all been a pleasure to work with. This is, of course a tribute to their absolute professionalism. However, I think it is also due to their belief – expressed several times to me – that, with this CD, we were all working on something a little bit special.

I am delighted that we will be launching the Songs Now CD at the August 2012 Late Music concert. All the tracks on the CD will be included in the concert. This is the full track listing for the CD which will be available at the Late Music Concert Series, all good classical music record shops and from the Meridian website http://www.meridian-records.co.uk/

This is the full track listing

Songs Now – British Songs of the 21st Century

Paul Carey Jones – baritone
Ian Ryan – piano

David Power Eight Evening Songs.

Tom Armstrong Opened Spaces.

David Lancaster Memory of Place.

Richard Whalley Six Songs of Old Japanese Wisdom.

Peter Reynolds Adieu to all Alluring Toys.

Steve Crowther Songs for Don.

William Rhys Meek Winter is a Slow Death Waiting.

Michael Parkin Three Songs.


David Power

Composer of the Week: Peter Reynolds

Peter Reynolds is a highly regarded Cardiff-based composer who has been programmed a number of times by Late Music. He is also a writer on music, a part-time member of staff at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Composer-in-Residence for Young Composer of Dyfed. His songs Adieu to all alluring toys will be performed in the next LM recital (Saturday 4th August) by Paul Carey Jones (baritone) and Ian Ryan (piano).

Steve Crowther: Peter, I thought that Adieu to all alluring toys was such a captivating title that we chose it as a tag line for the concert itself! Where did it come from?

Peter Reynolds: I’ve been interested in inscriptions on church memorials for sometime now, particularly the ones from the eighteenth century. On one level, many of them are no more than doggerel, but they also have a sincerity and innocence that is very moving. Two of the epitaphs I’ve used are written to the memory of small children whilst another warns of the inevitability of our mortality. They are innocent, naïve and sentimental, but the words nonetheless are full of light, optimism and even humour, far removed from our more recent view of mortality. It is these qualities that the music seeks to capture; it’s a difficult balancing act, particularly in a culture where irony is so much a part of our way of expressing ourselves. So, to answer your question, the title is simply a line taken from one of these inscriptions, which I collected from a tiny country church in Breconshire. It appears in the first of the three settings that make up the piece. Although they’re being issued as part of Paul’s new CD on the Meridian label of contemporary British song, I tend to think of the piece as a short cantata in the eighteenth century sense of the word.

SC: Can you describe the process of setting them?

PR: Like, I suspect, a lot of composers, I used to be very highly structured in my approach to composition, but these days I am more interested in a more spontaneous approach. So, much of the music was set down in quite a free way over about a period of six months, but then gradually sculpted into the final result. There were recently some fascinating talks in the Radio 3 series, The Essay, on creativity in middle age (which, I suppose, is where I find myself now). One of the contributors, the writer Frances Fyfield, defined artists as either working from the inside-out or the outside-in. I suppose I belong to the outside-in camp: hacking away to discover the shape beneath.

SC: Do you write at the piano, do you sing during the compositional process?

PR: Most of my work is done at my desk, though I do use the piano to check harmony and the like. One of the advantages (and there aren’t many) of being a lousy pianist, is that one is thrown back on one’s internal musical imagination, rather than composing through improvisation (though there’s nothing wrong with that). I also craft all my music on paper, and do not use music software. This is a deliberate decision: it slows me down and makes me consider more carefully what I write. I remember that Morton Feldman used to say that copying out his music in different drafts brought him closer to the material.

SC: Is it important to know the performers? Do you write with a voice in mind?

PR: Yes, I think that it’s crucial to either know the performers or to have some sense of the occasion or space for which the piece is being composed; I’m totally at one with Britten’s views on this. These days I find it virtually impossible to start writing unless I know these things. For me music doesn’t exist until it’s performed. 

SC: How would you describe your individual ‘sound world’?

PR: This is the question that every composer dreads and, without being coy about it, I don’t really think I know. Obviously, one becomes aware of (or friends remark on) certain technical or stylistic traits, but I feel that it’s better not to get caught up with consciously identifying these. But there are things that have become apparent to me, particularly in the last five years during which there has been quite a change in my music. I’ve finally discovered that I really don’t enjoy working on large-scale forms (though most of the music I love most is composed in those forms): I prefer far more to work on a small canvas: eight minutes is now a long piece from my point of view. 

I also like to work with very simple material and to expand and shape it quite organically. I’ve increasingly rejected systematic forms and techniques and like to spend a lot of time considering the work and revising it before it goes to performance (though this isn’t always possible).  

SC: What motivates you to compose? 

PR: Well, it’s the only job really worth doing and as things never match up to one’s expectations, it becomes a life-long search to try and achieve that unachievable perfection.

SC: Which living composers do you identify with or simply admire?

PR: I find that I tend to identify more with makers working in other media these days, like Richard Long for instance, rather than the contemporary music circus, but the kind of composers I identify with would probably include people like Howard Skempton or Laurence Crane. 

SC: If you could have a beer and a chat with any composer from the past, who would it be and why?

PR: I always regret never having met Michael Tippett, although I often heard him speak or saw him from a distance at concerts. I admire him for his humanity, his ability to put music in a much wider context than just music. 

SC: Now for some desert island discery – please name eight pieces of music you could not be without, and then select just one.

PR: This is so difficult and one’s choice changes from week to week, day to day, but this morning it would be: 

Fuweles in the frith (anonymous – 1280s or 90s)

Brumel: Gloria (from the Earthquake Mass)

Haydn: Symphony No.22 (Philosopher)

Bach: Cantata No.151. Süsser Trost, mein Jesus kommt

Wagner: Parsifal

Busoni: Berceuse élégiaque

Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instrument

Feldman: Piano & String Quartet

The piece from these that I’d choose would be Fuweles in the frith. Written in the thirteenth century, it’s a bare two-part vocal piece of the utmost simplicity and timelessness, lasting about two minutes. We have no idea who composed it and it doesn’t matter: it’s the kind condition to which I feel all people making things should aspire.

SC: …and a book?

PR: In Parenthesis by David Jones

SC: Film?

PR: Almost anything by Ingmar Bergman

SC: … and a luxury item?

PR: A real summer?  

SC: Amen to that. Peter Reynolds, thank you

www.composersofwales.org/member.php?ID=141

Celebrating Michael Nyman

Stop the clocks, we have a live ‘un! Michael Nyman is the current BBC Composer of the Week (Radio Three, 12.00 – 1.00pm)

Michael Nyman is best known for his collaborations with film director Peter Greenaway, producing groundbreaking movies such as The Draughtman’s Contract and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Yet his most popular score was written for Jane Campion’s magnificent film, The Piano. Critical response to this score was divided, yet the soundtrack cd has sold over three million copies. So I don’t think he will be over bothered.

Nyman’s output is massive, embracing opera (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Facing Goya), five string quartets, various concertos and songs to name but a few of the genres.

It was Michael Nyman who invented the word ‘minimalism’ to describe a new sound world of new music in the late 1960’s.

He has worked with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, writing the libretto for Down By The Greenwood Side and Damon Albarn, co-writing the score for the 1999 film Ravenous.

His music often draws from the past, but reinvents it in his own distinctive, inimitable style. There is a ‘Nyman’ sound: energetic, physical, driven, repetitive and invariably positive. One comes away from a Michael Nyman Band gig sated, it is like a rock concert, a real musical experience.

Late Music has programmed Michael Nyman in the past and will continue to do so in the future. He is, surely, a worthy ‘composer of the week’.

Steve

P.S. which football team does he support?

How would you describe ‘classical’ music?

Is ‘classical’ music art, serious, legitimate, concert or erudite music? (Wikipedia)

Or is it about perception?

“I call it pretty music but the old people call it the blues” – ‘Little’ Stevie Wonder

A couple of years ago some research showed that there is a large number of people who attend ‘cultural’ activities but regard classical music as ‘one step too far’. Why?

“It’s not for us” As classical music is the art music rooted in the traditions of Western music, in the broad period from the 11th century to present times, I’d argue that it’s actually for all of us. Like any artform, the work can be studied, investigated and researched – if that’s what you want to do. But you can also just enjoy it with no special study. I do.

“It’s hard to take in new music” True, up to a point. Sometimes some new piece of music is just immediately right. (For me, two examples: Ray Charles ‘What’d I Say’ and John Adams ‘Grand Pianola Music’).

“I get classical, but I’m not sure what contemporary classical music is” The term ‘contemporary music’ is sometimes used to describe music composed in the late 20th century through to the present day. Our definition is music by living composers, which means a lot of new music!

Because of the unfamiliarity of this work, we’ve selected a pool of composers who will be regularly programmed, backed up by examples of their music on our website. We’ll be adding examples of their work regularly through the year – from our previous concerts and from the ones this year. Keep an ear out.

“I’m not sure what to do at classical concerts” A starting point is to have a look at another blog of ours ‘Overcoming the constraints of tradition’ which, we hope, answers some of the new concertgoers concerns.

“It’s too expensive” Often true, but you only really find that out after you’ve been! We have set a price of £10 for all concerts, reduced to £8 for the usual concessions. We also have a student rate of £3. We are able to do this because of the financial support that we receive from our sponsors (all listed on our website www.latemusic.org).

Back to Little Stevie: what we or you call it is not important. It’s if you like it.

Songs Now – British Songs of the 21st Century

Songs Now CD Launch at Late Music.
Saturday 4th August 2012

In the last ten years or so, I have been noticing a gradual but perceptible increase in both the quantity and the quality of songs being written by British composers. I am not sure why this is. However, in recent decades, the influence of the European avant-garde has receded, the influence of rock music has become ever stronger and British composers seem to have become more at ease with stylistic diversity as well as with their own national musical heritage. I suspect that these factors have all played a part in creating circumstances that are more favourable for songwriting than have existed for some time.

In 2007, a few of us discussed this and decided to form the short-lived 21st Century Song Project. Several new song cycles were written for this including four that appear on this CD – Power, Armstrong Whalley and Crowther. The strength of these songs further convinced me things were moving in this direction. However, we found it difficult to secure funding and were only able to deliver two concerts.

In 2009, the NMC label released their excellent quadruple Songbook CD, featuring songs by over 100 composers. The release of this CD prompted discussions in the national media about the possibility of a revival of British Song. This seemed a good omen and made me more determined than even to do a significant song project. The previous year – 2008 – I had formed the Grimsby St Hughs Festival. The aims of this Festival are to bring professional classical music concerts to North East Lincolnshire and to programme and promote new music that is relatively accessible but has a 21st century ‘sensibility’, so to speak. Now, inspired by the NMC songbook, I decided to devote a day of the Festival to 20th and 21st Century British song.

The Song Day took place at Grimsby Minster on Saturday 25th September 2010 and comprised three recitals – soprano and piano, tenor and piano and baritone and piano – and an excellent talk on British song by Peter Reynolds. Each concert was an approximately equal mix of early 20th century songs and 21st century ones. Moreover, we did our best to programme some of the very finest composers of 20th century songs and the recitals included works by Britten, Warlock, Quilter, Walton, W Denis Browne (a stunning songwriter who is ridiculously under-rated), Bridge, Finzi, Gurney and Butterworth. The 21st century songs included a generous amount of the songs on this CD. We even had an audience vote – just a bit of fun really – as to whether people preferred the 20th or 21st century music and the 21st century stuff won by 8%! One person wrote that he preferred the 21st century stuff ‘even though’ he was born in 1936!

The songday was so successful that there was a widespread feeling that we should not leave it at that but, rather, capture the new songs on CD. Funding from the Arts Council and the Festival’s reserves made this possible and we were delighted when Meridian agreed to release the CD. The CD was certainly a joy to make. The performers, the composers, the engineer and the staff at the National Centre for Early Music in York – where the CD was recorded – and at Meridian Records have all been a pleasure to work with. This is, of course a tribute to their absolute professionalism. However, I think it is also due to their belief – expressed several times to me – that, with this CD, we were all working on something a little bit special.

I am delighted that we will be launching the Songs Now CD at the August 2012 Late Music concert. All the tracks on the CD will be included in the concert. This is the full track listing for the CD which will be available at the Late Music Concert Series, all good classical music record shops and from the Meridian website http://www.meridian-records.co.uk/

This is the full track listing

Songs Now – British Songs of the 21st Century

Paul Carey Jones – baritone
Ian Ryan – piano

David Power Eight Evening Songs.

Tom Armstrong Opened Spaces.

David Lancaster Memory of Place.

Richard Whalley Six Songs of Old Japanese Wisdom.

Peter Reynolds Adieu to all Alluring Toys.

Steve Crowther Songs for Don.

William Rhys Meek Winter is a Slow Death Waiting.

Michael Parkin Three Songs.

David Power