Ten New Debussys on the BBC

© Ian Dingle

Saturday 1st September saw the culmination of the 'Ten New Debussys' project. Pianist James Willshire performed ten premieres, each of which took us on a journey from a piano piece by Debussy into the composer's unique sound-world. In the same week, the project featured in two BBC broadcasts.

On Wednesday 29th August, James appeared on BBC Radio 3's 'In Tune' programme. As well as discussing the project, James performed two pieces live: Debussy's fourth prelude, Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir, and Nicola LeFanu's Souvenir du petit berger, inspired by 'The Little Shepherd' from Children's Corner.

The programme is available to listen to at the link below until 28th September. The 'Ten New Debussys' feature starts at 34'50'' with the Debussy performance first, continuing with discussion at 38’44”, and finishing with the LeFanu performance at 44'15".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/m000087y

Errollyn Wallen appeared on BBC 2's Proms Extra programme on Saturday 1st September. At 2'26", Errollyn talks about the 'Ten New Debussys' project, and later on discusses Bernstein, Bach, Ravel, and more. The episode is available to watch on BBC iPlayer until 30th September.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bjcfyr/bbc-proms-proms-extra-2018-episode-7 

Many thanks to Errollyn, James and the BBC for these, and special thanks to all the project composers for their great pieces: Jia Chai, Robin Holloway, David Lancaster, Nicola LeFanu, Ailís Ní Ríain, Michael Parkin, Lynne Plowman, David Power, Thomas Simaku, and Errollyn Wallen.

Left to right: Parkin, Plowman, LeFanu, Willshire, Lancaster, Chai, Power, Ríain, Simaku.
© Jingzhi Chen

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

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

‘Small is beautiful…’ in conversation with Michael Parkin

Richard Casey playing Michael Parkin’s Prelude and Fugue No 4
Rika Zayasu’s piano recital on Saturday 2nd June was programmed by composer Michael Parkin who came up with a theme: ‘Small is beautiful’ – reflecting the miniature in contemporary music.

I had a fascinating chat with him about this earlier in the week

Steve Crowther: Michael, can you just give us an idea or outline in your programme thinking?
Michael Parkin: To begin with I just started to assemble pieces I really like and admire – pieces I thought audiences would enjoy. Then I simply waited for the threads and themes to emerge. It soon became apparent that there was common ground and subtle relationships between virtually all my ‘shortlisted’ works; forms from the past, such as variations, passacaglia or fugue…

SC: Surely these are forms from the past, what is their relevance now?
MP: I don’t see them this way. They’re simply techniques and processes – fugue and passacaglia are simply ways of organising counterpoint. They are not rigid structures, they’re plastic and malleable, and as such, relevant to any age.

SC: Are there any other ‘threads?
MP: Yes, there is an insistence on drama, narrative and description; and finally, most of the composers I’ve chosen have taken their inspiration, or at least ‘tapped into’, music from other cultures, traditions and genres – I’m thinking here particularly of Sculthorpe’s Japanese inspired Night Pieces and Weir’s wonderful variations on a Spanish/Arabic folk tune, but this would equally be true of Rzewski’s Give Peace a Chance, or even Part’s reflections on Chant in Fur Alina.

SC: Could you tell us a little more about Rzewski’s Dead Moth Tango? I didn’t realize it existed…
MP: It doesn’t!

SC: Ah.
MP: The idea of pairing composers’ work in each half misfired! My intention was to frame the entire concert with Rzewski – but it turns out that Dead Moth Tango was actually written by William Bolcom.

SC: So where did the confusion spring from?
MP: The piece was featured on to a tribute album to Rzewski by the American pianist Ursula Opens. How or why it was included I have no idea.

SC: So…?
MP: …so a note to all programmers – research thoroughly!

SC: Quite, but why did you still leave it in?
MP: Because Dead Moth Tango is wonderful, and I’ve now discovered the music of Bolcom. One of the joys of programming concerts is that you get to listen to a lot of new music – it’s a delightful antidote to laziness!

SC: What about the Sculthorpe?
MP: The ideology for the Sculthorpe pairing was simple, I just wanted to include as much of this sadly neglected Australian composer as possible.

SC: His music is fantastic…
MP: …and the ‘short frame’, provided by the interval, gave me the perfect opportunity to divide my own Preludes and Fugues into two groupings. I think it’s difficult to listen to (not to mention play!) four demanding works such as these on the trot.

SC: What have you discovered during this process?
MP: If this programming exercise has taught me anything it’s this – the piano miniature is not only alive and well, it’s thriving!

SC: Can you tell us a little bit about the Prelude and Fugues we are going to hear at this recital? Are the influences simply formal ie Bach?
MP: Not at all. As a whole the Prelude and Fugues have allowed me to tap into, and pay debts and homage to all the various ‘musics’ that I’ve listed to over the last 50 years.

SC: Which?
MP: Well, there’s the elegiac keyboard writing of Arvo Part in Prelude to No. 3; Howlin’ Wolf, Blues and Jazz in the Prelude to No. 4; Robert Fripp and King Crimson in Fugue No. 4. I could go on! I’m not sure listeners will spot them (it will be very evident in Prelude No. 4!!), but they’re there nevertheless.

SC: We have a sound file of Richard Casey performing the Prelude and Fugue No 4. Can you describe the Prelude? Was the influence Shostakovich?
MP: The prelude is curious; the material I use is virtually a nursery rhyme tune that is infuriatingly just short of a balanced 4 bar phrase, and ends in an abrupt change of key. By ‘tweaking’ just one note near the end to make the tune more acceptable, you would have to repeat the whole thing 11 times (44 bars!) through every key on the piano to arrive back where you started. Things are never what they seem…

SC: …and the Fugue
MP: The Fugue to No 4 starts with a single melody which constitutes the ‘subject’. What I’ve tried to do is reduce this melody to its essential melodic and harmonic components, so that with each re-entry the melody becomes shorter and more compact, with the result that the ‘counter melodies’ begin to gain in importance.

SC: So you have created an inbuilt drama driving the music forward?
MP: In a way, yes. Shortening the melody (subject) each time produces a ‘stretto’ effect (because the entries arrive quicker), without actually using stretto! The last entry of the melody (subject) in the left hand is only about 4 or 5 notes long, so all we are left with is a sort of ‘halo’ of ambiguous harmonies hovering above it.

I suppose this is a sort of anti-Fugue! Destroy the ‘subject’ and allow ‘counter-subjects’ to emerge.

SC: So this is not the blue-rinsed reliving of old forms but musical revolution?
MP: Behave!

David Lancaster on ‘Vertigo’

The Late Music Concert on May 5 will feature works by David Lancaster

My string quartet is in two parts, ‘Vertigo’ (which was composed for the Tippett Quartet which first performed it in March 2011) and ‘Velocity’ (composed for the Ligeti Quartet to premiere at late Music in May).

Vertigo took as its starting point a fragment of music which Bernard Herrmann composed for the Hitchcock film of the same name because the original commission had come from the ‘Partners in Suspense’ conference which explored the collaboration between Hitchcock and Herrmann.
The link to Herrmann’s music was a given but it was always my intention to create an original piece of music which was authentically my own and which could enjoy a life beyond the conference. It isn’t in any sense an arrangement of Herrmann’s score but it does represent a creative response to Herrmann’s (and Hitchcock’s) work on a number of different intertextual levels.

Subsequent to composing my piece I was very pleased to find the interview with Martin Scorsese in Sound and Vision regarding Vertigo: ‘Hitchcock’s film is all about obsession… it’s about circling back to the same moment again and again… and the music is also built around spirals and circles – fulfilment and despair… Herrmann really understood that Hitchcock wanted to penetrate to the heart of obsession’.

So just as Hitchcock uses repetition of themes and events to represent Scottie’s growing obsession with Madeleine and his spiralling decline, my music is based on a strict cyclic structure in which the series of musical events stated at the outset (beginning with an aggressive gesture from viola) is repeated five times and on each cycle is subject to a different process of development or transformation – but still remains recognisable and therefore becomes increasingly obsessive.

The fifth cycle in particular draws upon Herrmann’s ‘obsession’ motif – a plaintive falling figure, based on the musical technique of suspension; highly appropriate since falling – physically and emotionally – is at the heart of the film – and it is also a theme which has recurred my work on several occasions – my choral piece from last year was called ‘Fallen’ for example; another was ‘Suspense’ for soprano saxophone.

The sixth cycle begins but the spell is immediately broken and the work ends as it began.

Velocity is a companion piece to Vertigo rather than a second movement; the two pieces can be programmed together but each is capable of standing alone. This quartet is more concerned with Hitchcock than Herrmann and it attempts to utilise several of the former’s cinematic techniques, broadly translated into musical terms. Extremes of slow and fast music are starkly juxtaposed; the title is not intended to indicate raw speed but rather to suggest that the quicker music is always present but beneath the surface, capable of interrupting at any time.

The aggressive motif from viola remains from the earlier Vertigo but here the structure is rather less formal; the musical gestures move in and out of our consciousness rather fleetingly, like half-forgotten memories, often on the threshold of silence.

For the regular Late Music listener: you may have heard the final bars of Velocity re-used in my song ‘Make Do and Mend’ which Jeremy Huw Williams sang in last month’s recital; given the subject matter of the song it seemed appropriate to construct it around on some pre-used material. Here in the quartet it represents a sort of apotheosis – almost a resolution – of all the slow music in the piece.

Review of the April Concert

‘The whole evening was so very lively, unlike some contemporary concerts I attend … where the audience sometimes seem a trifle disengaged. And the reception very warm, to all the pieces. And the performances superb.’
- Anthony Gilbert, composer
Review: Jeremy Huw Williams / Nigel Foster; Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York
By Martin Dreyer
It takes a fair act of faith to attend a song recital which includes six world premieres, on four of which the ink has still not dried, according to the advance brochure.
Or does it? The thrill of the new never fades. Moreover, the promoters of the York Late Music concert series know what they are doing.
Audiences trust them to deliver quality – and that is what we got in last Saturday’s programme by the experienced and eloquent duo of baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and pianist Nigel Foster.
A relentless thread of melancholy pervaded the evening, reflecting contemporary angst, perhaps, although in truth, since John Dowland’s early 17th century outpourings, melancholy has always been a strong element in British song.
Two song-cycles stood out. David Power kept the accompaniments to his Six Poetical Songs mainly chordal, with spare harmonies, which gave the poetic snatches room to speak, sometimes sardonically, eventually with barely ironic menace.
Steve Crowther’s touching Songs for Fred, inspired by his father’s death, offered glimpses of a Yorkshire life, mainly set to Don Walls’s evocative lyrics. The music was especially effective when reflecting a gentle imagination on the loose.
David Lancaster’s Propaganda, setting two exceptional love-songs by Daniela Nunnari, Ailís Ní Ríain’s Brontë-inspired recitative Mourning Bracelet, Peter Byrom-Smith’s light-hearted sketches of York, Julian Broughton’s haunting Shadow Play, and James Else’s elegiac One Hour all made distinctive contributions to an entertainingly multi-faceted look at the melancholic.

Overcoming the constraints of tradition

Igor Stravinsky whose Rite of Spring caused a riot on its première

There are certain rules about most music concerts, such as applauding solos by jazz artists or waving a lighter at stadium rock concerts. Classical music has its own customs and we work within these, while aiming to update some, without doing a ‘Stravinsky’.

Our main intention is to make classical music more open, with communication between composers, performers and audience. We have composers’ talks before each concert and encourage performers to talk about the works being performed. But, if you haven’t been to a concert like this before – what do you need to know?

We hope this helps:

Is there a dress code? 
No, not at all!

How long are the concerts? 
Concerts usually last about two hours.

Is there an interval? 
Yes, we have an interval, usually about 15/20 minutes long. That’s included in the two hour length of concert.

Will there be drinks/refreshments? 
We run a small bar offering wine and juice. As the Chapel is not licensed to sell alcohol, we ask for donations of £2 for a glass of wine and 50p for juice.

What do I need to know in advance? 
You don’t need to know anything but, if you are interested, there will be information about the featured composers and performers on the website plus some sound files to listen to. There will be a pre-concert talk by a featured composer who will invite questions. The concert programme has information on the composers and the pieces being performed. We also have a concert feedback form for your comments.

When should I applaud? 
If you enjoy what you hear, the usual ‘rule’ is to applaud at the end of a piece. Some pieces have more than a single section – these are indicated in the concert programme. If you’re not sure, wait until a couple of other people have started and join in.

Anything else? 
We look forward to hearing from you. What is your experience of attending a classical music concert? Leave us a comment below. You can also get in touch with us on Twitter, our user id is @LateMusicUK

Late Music and diversity

The Song Recital featuring baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and pianist Nigel Foster (Saturday 7th April) was a real triumph of style and diversity: six new works written for the concert, settings of ten local or regional poets who were (mostly) present for this feast of song.

But what of a concert of String Quartets?

On Saturday 5th May the Ligeti String Quartet will play music by Philip Glass, John Adams, Nicola Le Fanu, myself and a new work by David Lancaster. Is this a diverse bag of compositions? Well yes.

For Mr Glass, repetition and process are the tools he uses to spin these minimalist webs of intricate beauty. But are there echoes of the past? How about the Baroque? Bach and Glass, surely not. Well, both styles tend to meet at one central idea, that the music creates a single state or mood, as opposed to the Classical idea of drama and duality, for example.

However, one could also make the point that …’ whereas Bach can create multiple meanings from a single line, Glass can only create minimal meanings however many lines!!’ [Nicola Le Fanu].

Ah, but Zen…

good win for Chelsea last night

John Adams’ Fellow Traveller also comes under the ‘minimalist’ umbrella, but this fast, syncopated driven short piece embraces a different aesthetic to the world of Glass.

Nicola likened the form of her String Quartet ‘…as like a concise poem, a musical equivalent to a sonnet’. And, as it was composed for the London international String Quartet competition in 1997, it had 12 premieres in one day!

Can one compose ‘political’ music? Frederic Rzewski is profoundly moved by matters of injustice, class and even revolution eg in the magnificent set of piano variations, The People United Will Never Be Defeated. My String Quartet No1 is subtitled ‘A Song for Salford’ and responds to my first visit to Salford many years ago. Much of the writing is raw and physical but there is, in the musical train journey, a search for hope, if not salvation. That was found in the people I met and reflected in a search for a tonal resolution.

The first movement of David Lancaster’s piece looks to the spiky sound world of Bernard Hermann for inspiration. The resulting Vertigo, a movement full of wit and invention, was part of a Partners in Suspense project, a fitting celebration of the Hitchcock and Hermann collaborations. The second movement, no doubt, will have many new twists and turns… I can’t wait!