NOTES 

This website is live but not complete. I shall be updating it constantly over the next few weeks, prioritising the audio files.

 

PETERLOO 

I am the Great-great-great-grandson of Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, who was one of those in command of the Manchester Yeomanry in August 1819. His portrait has been in my family's possession all my life. For the past 35 years it has hung in the stairwell of our house (it is a large painting, so this was the only wall space big enough). As I discovered more information about his involvement in the massacre at Peterloo, I came to realise that his actions on that day were directly responsible for the deaths and hundreds of injuries inflicted upon the large and peaceful crowd gathered to listen to "Orator" Hunt on the 16th.

Captain Birley was not, as I had been brought up to believe, merely the administrative commander whose leadership happened to occur in 1819. He was in charge on that day and led his ill-disciplined (and possibly slightly drunk) soldiers of the Yeomanry in a poorly planned attempt to arrest Hunt. There was a crowd of at least 60,000 - probably more like 80,000 - and Hunt was on a raised platform deep within the masses. Even before the panic that led to the indiscriminate slaughter and violence, the advancing troops knocked over a mother and toddler, killing the child, and also knocked over and killed a special constable (one appointed for crowd control just for this event). The ensuing attempt to arrest Hunt and others, and retreat through the multitude was clumsy and disorganised. Whilst no violence was initiated by the crowd, the individual troops felt hemmed in, and drew their sabres to hack their way out of the constricted space. There were several deaths and hundreds of injuries.

The history is clear to read about in accounts written at the time. I have read these and feel great shame. I gifted my portrait of Captain Birley to the People's History Museum, where it now forms part of the commemorative Peterloo exhibition.

Of course I am not accountable for the behaviour of an ancestor in events that occurred 135 years before I was born. However, on the wrong side of this important historical event, I have made it my business to learn about what happened, and the reasons for it. I also felt a strong creative urge to express myself in regards to the Peterloo massacre in the form of a large-scale symphonic poem. This I composed in April 2019, over a three week period of intense writing.

The work is descriptive, and does not require further written explanation. This 'performance' is generated by the usual combination of Sibelius software and the EastWest sound libraries:

 

 

ADVENT CAROL SUCCESSION 

 

I began this work at the end of August 2007 and finished it on October 2nd with a view to doing it the following Advent. However I could not get enough gentlemen together and so abandoned the idea and booked the following Advent Sunday [2008], in St. Mary's Church. There are 10 sections in all and these are for the most part related. The work is structurally organic.

I wanted to approach the idea of Advent from the point of view of people for whom what follows Advent has not yet happened! For us Advent is just part of the Church year, like Lent, Easter, Whitsun and the like, but folk close to what was happening over 2000 years ago would have seen things in an entirely different light. I wanted to express their sense of excited expectancy; and the “rose” in the seventh carol is a lively teenager who manages to turn disaster into a political movement and ultimately a religion, a force who could convince a lot of people that her situation is divine rather than a silly human mistake. My music aims to express an excited anticipation of something very special to come.

The first section, I Look From Afar, has material that recurs later. I have dealt with the metaphor that is Israel with a kind of musical question mark: the harmony is built up of a D major chord superimposed over C major, and recurs many times (often differently scored and sometimes transposed). In the choral part there are many examples dotted throughout the work – frequently in the Canite Tuba, and of course in the cyclically repeated final section.

The harmony and melody from the very start revolve around a germinal idea, very much in G major. A short instrumental interlude leads into the second main section, Out of Your Sleep Arise! and Wake which is the only music written before having had the idea of this succession. It is for the most part lively and urgent with gentle driving rhythms ever pushing the music on. All the phrases leap upwards, with optimism, in 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths and 8ves. A short instrumental passage, an imitative passage playing on the 7th leap and “the chord” described above links to the third section Adam Lay Ybounden, the words of which have always fascinated me as a complete religious deceit - giving thanks to God for original sin without which there would have been no need for the Virgin Mary, Jesus and the rest. The underlay for the text about the “clerkes” [clergy] busy scrabbling around in “their book” [the bible] is suitably fussy…The joyful climax of this short section is at figure L with the words “ne had the apple taken been, ne had never Our Lady a been heavene queen.” The final “Deo gracias!” harks back to the main opening theme. A short instrumental duet between flute & bass clarinet sets up the musical material for the next section, the Ave Maria, in particular the off-beat surging rhythm driving the music forward. I had not appreciated that the Ave Maria text, as well as praising the blessedness of Mary, ends with an intercession to the Mother of God to pray for us both now and at the hour of our death, so this is a powerful centrepiece to this succession.

As the flute soars upwards so we hear for the first time the fourth accompanying instrument, the organ, in an instrumental interlude which sets an ancient plainsong melody – Descendit de Celis (sic). This describes a hesitant descent to our earth of the Son of God to offer salvation through sacrifice to an unholy world. In the scheme of this succession God descends to earth straight after the words “in hora mortis nostrae” – ‘at the hour of our death’, thus linking our mortality with eternal salvation. From the original fragment of plainsong I composed an imitative passage in which the entire dynamic is one of hesitant descent – God coming down to earth in the form of His Son, pausing reflectively from time to time. At these reflective moments the organ pedal – a deep 16’ sound – gives a sense of the ever diminishing space between heaven and earth as the descent ‘de celis’ continues.

The extract of the plainsong melody that I have used descends an octave. The full Latin text is as follows:

- Descendit de celis/ missus ab arce patris introivit per aurem/ virginis in regionem nostram indutus/ stola purpurea/ Et exivit per auream portam lux et decus/ universe fabrice mundi

Which translates – roughly – as:

- He descended from heaven/ sent from the bow of the Father he came through the air/ to the Virgin in our region [world]/ assumed the purple robes/ And left through the door of air, light & beauty/ made throughout the world

The first part of the14th century French plainsong is where the majority of the thematic material comes from. Canonic imitation is a feature of much of the piece. The lines of music presented at the beginning are combined with each other in different ways as the music progresses. The elements of hesitation include the use of pauses and the latter part of the plainsong extract which alternates just the two notes, F and G. The dynamics are also important, with the two main statements starting very loud and decrescendo-ing to a whisper.

Canite Tuba – Sound the Trumpet - is thematically firmly linked to the opening movement. It is in three sections, rigorously rhythmic in character in the outer two but almost pastoral in the central section the text of which echoes the aria Ev’ry Valley from the Messiah - making crooked paths straight and rough pastures smooth - and I have incorporated thematic references to this aria:

the long-held trills refer to the repeated tone Handel uses for the text “the crooked straight, and the rough places plain”.

for good measure the piccolo refers to Bach's 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring'.

For the third section the organ is reintroduced; there is an increased sense of urgency for the command to come and not to delay – “veni! et noli tardare!” - and the realisation that all the great things that have been promised are now imminent – “Ecce venit!” And at the very end as the shouted echoes fade away there is the quiet awe: “for the day of the Lord is now at hand”. I do not know of anything other than a slow and gentle setting of There Is No Rose, but my setting is full of verve and youthful energy (coruscating accompanying instruments), depicting Mary as an extraordinary teenager turning what could have been a disastrous situation - pregnancy outside of marriage - into the triumph of God's incarnation. Some feat! The macaronic text is rich poetry indeed, Heaven and Earth being described in the “little space” of Mary's womb, Res Miranda. I have brought in the choir for both this and the earlier Alleluia in bursts of rhapsodic ecstasy. The more thought-provoking “pari forma” – God in persons three [the Trinity], but nonetheless ‘of the same form’, is more reflective in my setting. The text mentions both the shepherds in the field and the idea of the Trinity, both of which come after Advent.... I originally omitted the two Latin commands Gaudeamus (let us rejoice) and Transeamus (let us go) but I have since included the full text in an extended revision. 

As with the plainsong chant Descendit de Celis I love to connect with past composers and at this stage introduce a quite magnificent plainsong chant Veni, Creator Spiritus (Come, Holy Ghost....), initially making use of a technique called fauxbourdon exemplified in Gilles Binchois’ hymn setting of this chant set in the first half of the 15th century. Around this simple organ arrangement are several independent contrapuntal workings of the main theme, including canons [for example between the piccolo, clarinet and ’cello]. This section ends with a glorious Landini cadence, the leading note dropping to the 6th degree and the chromatically raised 4th so evocative of the early Renaissance. There follows a vigorously rhythmic ‘alleluia’, somewhat jazzy, out of which the choir, in strong unison, once more sing the plainsong chant. This time the accompaniment is my own harmonisation, on top of which the flute and clarinet trip along in double octaves, still based on this plainsong chant. The final section secures the arch-like structure of this work, being a virtual repeat of the opening movement, but this time to the text Tomorrow Go Ye Forth. I was drawn to this text in particular because of the words Stand Ye Still, something very few of us manage to do in our busy modern world. The whole work ends with a short coda, [a reference to ‘There Is No Rose’] where the music disappears into the Palestinian night.

Postscript:

The coming together in a single day workshop to put together from scratch a new work lasting well over half an hour is, as far as I am aware, the first of its kind locally. This happened in January 2008 and was due to happen on a far bigger scale in January 2010, when Michael Finnissy so kindly agreed to direct a choir of soloists [about 25 singers] and an Ensemble of 28 players in a weekend workshop/ recording session in St Mary’s Church [Dorchester]. By its nature it relied on two things: the generosity of the performers all of whom were donating their services for free; and both the individual and collective musical talent present here in such abundance. Closer to the time a few key instrumentalists pulled out and I was unable with such short notice to replace them, so sadly I cancelled the whole venture.

BISHOPS AND CLERKS 

Bisshoppis and his Clerkis (Tudor spelling) – a set of five symphonic poems, only four of which have so far been completed (the fifth is not likely to emerge. I wanted to write a movement called "The Ebb" but can no longer compose.)

These symphonic poems are designed to be performed singly or as one entire work (or in smaller groups).

The fearsome rocks known as the Bishops and Clerks lie in a line offshore from St David’s Head in the tidal waters which sweep up and down at running pace every day, every week, every month, every year, for thousands of years, billions of tons of water dragged in cycles in a tidal surge by a combination of the gravitational pull of the moon and sun. The sun has a massive gravity but is over 80 million miles away, the moon has a relatively small mass but because of its proximity it exerts the greater pull. The directional difference [or unity] of the combined forces of sun and moon create a cycle of neap tides and spring floods, reaching the dizzy heights of seven and threequarter metres [almost 28’] above mean low water. The race runs furiously on the spring flood, and in any sort of rough, windy weather this fury is dangerously big – especially when the tide runs against the wind. The surface of the tidal waters is ever changing, and compellingly lively. In the space of a few minutes I have sailed through dead flat but fast flowing water, with occasional knife-edged streams running in opposite directions [with attendant whirlpools], through chip chop wavelets, into huge overfalls often with ‘stopper’ waves, the largest of which are potentially very dangerous for small boats. They are best met at speed, head on, so that you burst through with ample momentum. Sideways on in a canoe is certainly not a good idea....

The group comprises four small rocky islands – North Bishop, Carreg Rhosson, Daufraich and South Bishop, aka Em-sger [two of these are groups of rocks, with some risky navigatable channels between....] called the Bishops, and there’s a scattering of attendant Clerks [or “choristers” in George Owen’s words – he was a local historian, an influencial squire of N. Pembrokeshire, living in the ancestral home at Henllys]. These are variously named descriptively in Welsh: Carreg Trai [Ebb-tide Rock]; Llech Uchaf [Upper Stone]; Gwahan [Separate – this one is directly north of Ramsey Island and still in the Sound]; Moelyn [Bare Top]; and Llechau Isaf, Maen Rhosson, Maen Daufraich, and although not perhaps part of the set of Clerks, Carreg Gafeiliog just off the headland out of Porth Sele leading towards St John’s Point round the corner, at the north end of Ramsey Sound proper. St David’s Head has an ancient name “Octopitarum Promontorium” which translates roughly as Headland of the Eight Perils, and many’s the time I have witnessed close up the terrifying clash of the elemental rocks and water, and every time I made sure that I was down-tide-side of the compellingly fascinating view of each peril. And perils these rocks and reefs are, in the words of George Owen in around 1600, a constant danger to sailors:

“These rocks are accounted sore dangers to those that seeke Milford coming from the south-west seas – the Bishop and these his clerkes preache deadly doctrine to their winter audience, such poor seafaring men as are forcyd thether by tempest, onlie in one thing they are to be commended, they keepe residence better than the rest of the canons of that see are wont to do.”

The sentiment was probably that of the vicar-choral [and organist] Thomas Tomkins [1572 – 1656]. Tomkins was born in St Davids where his father was organist of the cathedral, and he lived in a house somewhere above Whitesands. Thomas was taught by William Byrd and in his early twenties became organist of both Worcester Cathedral and the Chapel Royal [from 1621]. He composed much church music, madrigals, part-songs and instrumental music. Evidently much admired as a composer, he wrote the music for the coronation of Charles 1st.

In 1810 Richard Fenton [who lived nearby at Rhosson] relates in his book ‘A Historical Tour Through Pembrokeshire’ the dramatic story of a rescue made in about 1780 by Blanch Williams of Treleddyn – our local farm – of some Swedish mariners shipwrecked on one of George Owen’s aptly described ‘choristers’, and seemed doomed to drown in the ever-rising tide:

‘About thirty years ago a Swedish vessel laden with iron etc. Was wrecked on these rocks, but the crew, with the exception of one only, were saved by taking refuge on one of the smaller rocks in the train of the Great Bishop (one of the choristers, Geo. Owen would have called it), where their existence seemed to them protracted only to give death more terrors; for, without covering, food, or any hopes of escape, they considered their fate as inevitable. But a gentlewoman, Mrs. Williams, whose mansion of Trelethin faced that rock, and who was in the habit of viewing this tempestuous ocean through a telescope often in the day, providentially discovered those forlorn mariners just as they were beginning to carve their melancholy story on the rock, having resigned themselves to their fate; and immediately launching a boat in the creek below her house, notwithstanding the boisterousness of the weather, had the satisfaction to snatch from the jaws of fate, just ready to close on them, seven of her fellow-creatures, who, under her roof, till they had recovered their strength and spirits, experienced, as every other child of distress ever did, that kind and christian-like treatment which made them almost forget their misfortunes.’

I have often wondered which rocks the hapless but ultimately fortunate sailors were on after their shipwreck. Carreg Trai would fit the tale well – nearest St David’s Head and exposed only from half tide. No-one would survive long here! From Trelethin [sic – now spelled Treleddyn] she would, I suppose, not see most of the little ‘choristers’ to the south, the other side of Ramsey, nor would she see Gwahan. The other possibility is that the mariners were as close by as Carreg Gafeiliog, only just a few hundred yards off Porth Sele – but still a wet and exposed place to be, especially in stormy conditions. These do not dry out entirely.... My hunch is Carreg Trai, halfway to what I have always known as “Sunset Island” [North Bishop] which are the only rocks she would have seen which would be covered by the rising tide. Now, I have on many occasions set sail from Porth Sele, against the incoming waves. Even the slightest surf has the power to undo you, if the wave catches the boat badly, and it is very hard to get a momentum needed to burst through. The storm winds are nearly always from the west, and by the description ‘boisterousness of the weather’ I assume a gale or less from the west, with corresponding swell. An easterly gale blows the sea flat, and there is not much surf on the beach. Sailing out is comparatively easy, with a following wind. No – my hunch sees the shivering men on Carreg Trai, seeing their fate – the sea – ever rising to lap around their ankles and hiss death within the hour by sweeping them off their little haven. And Blanch Williams set out ‘at once’ from ‘the creek below her house’ – presumably Porth Sele – displaying in equal measure enormous courage, skill and strength in single-handedly dragging her boat to the water, and then making a passage over a lively surf AND avoiding the many rocks off the beach, sailing across to the sailors and somehow getting them all safely on board, whilst maintaining control in the tidal waters. I suspect she might have reached them on the turn of the tide, the so-called slack-water. But no mention is made of where the Swedish vessel struck rocks – maybe she didn’t, but was merely swamped by waves, despite what the narrative supposes? Maybe she was over-laden and too low in the water? In which case maybe she was sinking as she rounded St David’s Head and the crew jumped ship for what appeared the relative safety of Carreg Trai – and one poor soul didn’t make it, and was swept helplessly away to his death by drowning in the fearsome race?....

We cannot know the answers, but can appreciate the grey-cold dangers of these tidal waters. I am also very surprised not to have known about the terrific heroism shown by Blanch Williams - she ought to be celebrated throughout Wales, and beyond, surely?

There are many further tales to relate, experiences to share and fascinating facts to describe about these waters and the rocks, But first I must post the first part of a mighty symphony I am composing which attempts to describe the raw power, the beauty, the ever-changing moods of this archipelago; the sheer unstoppable mass of water flowing to and fro, the light, the darkness, the bleakness, the spirituality of the place; the immutable constancy of the islands’ presence. This opening movement – “The Flow” – lays down some of the motivic detail which I use in the other three movements

There have been numerous shipwrecks of course on these rocks – tons of shipping lies below the surface, washed now daily by the ebb-and-flow of this enormous tidal race just as the rocks themselves are scoured. The wildlife looks on and avails itself of the facility of these remote places. When I have sailed out here I have seen all those deep-sea birds, the ocean travellers, that are rare by the shore; and the dolphins and porpoises abound here, as well as the larger whales [I have seen Risso’s Dolphins out in the deep]; and of course there are hundreds of grey seals, which haul themselves onto the rocks for rest and social interchange.

One of the rocks is called Bell Rock [by North Bishop] and I have included an evocative tolling at the end of “The Flow”. There are not actually any bell-ringing wreck buoys; the sea is too rough, too strong, and such buoys would themselves be a considerable hazard. The whole archipelago might appear rather romantic from our shore viewpoint, but as seen from either the north or south they present an awesome sight, like fate creeping up to undo you in your boat, to threaten the sanctuary of your vessel. The inevitability of your boat meeting with these rocks is unavoidable, with such strong tides, and the concentration required to navigate safely past all of them is a nervous one! You think you know where they all are, but it is so, so easy to become confused about exactly where you are, and the hazards rear up on you so very fast. One 19th century sailor described the Bishops & Clerks as being –

- “like so many heads of gaping monstors ready to devour, watching as fancied dragons, with gaping mouths, fiery hissing tongues, and snorting iron snouts”.

*Update – March 2011:

I contacted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and received the following advice from the Orchestral Manager:

“The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is committed to championing Welsh orchestral music but as you might imagine, is approached regularly by many composers wishing to have their music performed by us. In order to cope with the large number of approaches, we have set up our Welsh Composers Showcase events. We invite applications and score submissions in the autumn which are then assessed (by one of our conducting team) and a shortlist of pieces are selected for rehearsal and public performance by the orchestra around February time. The event takes place in BBC Hoddinott Hall. You would be most welcome to submit your Symphonic Poems for consideration and if you are interested in this, please keep a close eye on our website around September time where you will find details on how to apply.”

And later:

“The aim of the Welsh Composers’ Showcase is to highlight works by living composers worthy of wider exposure and is organised in collaboration with Composers and Wales, Ty Cerdd and the Welsh Music Guild.”

Then the restrictions....

Composers eligible to submit a score are as follows:

- Post tertiary education composers born in Wales

- Post tertiary education composers currently living in Wales

- Composers studying composition at Post-Graduate level in Wales

- Composers born in Wales studying composition at Post-Graduate level outside Wales but within the U.K.

So that counts me out! I find the argument that all these professional orchestras give about being approached by too many people interested in having their scores considered for performance shamefully weak. It would be eminently feasible to have a range of filtering systems – eager volunteers with enough musical nous to form a fair judgement about the basic competence of a submitted score, who would pass on suitable material for further consideration to a more senior assessor, and so on through increasingly rigorous critical filtering to the conductor who would make a decision about whether or not to perform (even just in rehearsal) the music. This would be a fair and inclusive process – no eligibility criteria other than the worth of the music. No nationality barriers, no age barriers, no ‘where were you born/educated’ barriers, in fact no barriers at all. Why have barriers?

Then any half-decent music could have a fair chance of being played, of being heard, of being assessed. Culturally this would surely be a positive thing to do! As it is the world of professional performance is closed to composers like me. Some of us may possibly be composing really good music, but who will ever get to hear this under present systems? Instead we hear the establishment over and over ad nauseam – endless repeats of ‘safe’ music. And some of the music played is not particularly good.

He also said:

“You mention that your wish is to have these performed in St. Davids Cathedral. We only appear at St Davids by invitation of the St Davids and Fishguard Festivals, and the repertoire we play there is decided between the festivals, our producer and BBC Radio 3’s requirements. In fact, all our mainstream concert repertoire has to be approved by Radio 3.”

I did approach the St David’s Cathedral organist but received this reply:

“In terms of performance, I am not sure if I can help though. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales visits our Festival each year to give a concert, but I have no control whatsoever over the content of their concert, as this is decided by their own programmers several years in advance!”

So there it is. All pillars and posts. I might be composing music which is deeply imbued with local detail and which is as embedded in local Welsh cultural reference as is possible to be, yet it cannot be considered even by Wales’ very own National Orchestra, nor by the very centre of cultural identity, St David’s Cathedral. That I have been a part of Pembrokeshire throughout my life – over 70 years – and know the place intimately counts for little. I gained my BMus. At UCW Aberystwyth; I used to sing sometimes in the St Davids Cathedral choir; my family’s history on my father’s side (Morgans) is rooted in Swansea, the Mumbles & the Gower; my father was brought up speaking some Welsh; my Granny played hockey for Glamorgan; her brother is commemorated on the Mumbles WW1 Memorial (he lost a leg but still carried on flying in the Air Corps before being killed in a plane crash near Canterbury). I am beginning to think that there is some Machiavellian plot to prevent me ever hearing any of my music.....what is wrong with our professional orchestras, for goodness sake? It is deeply frustrating!

The RECHABITE - (in the Bishops and Clerks set of four symphonic poems, this is no.3)

I began composing this, the third movement, in the last week or so of July 2010, and completed it on August 7th – the fastest I have ever written anything. The Flow has been worked at on-and-off for a couple of years at least [although only recently in earnest] yet Rechabite came into being with great ease and great speed. Only when it came to the ironic little waltz-like section heralding the coda did I find that my ideas for the naturally flowing and vaguely programmatic form falter for a moment. The Rechabite [built at Lawrenny in 1840] was owned by a collection of individuals who mostly came from the St Davids area. The smack was around 19 tons, half-decked and rigged as a sloop, and plied a route north regularly from Porth Clais with culm [anthracite dust] and limestone – up to 30 tons. When heading up north through Ramsey Sound the load was less, to allow a higher freeboard for the rougher tidal waters. It was on just such a voyage to Fishguard one Wednesday, on September 4th 1861, that disaster struck. Times were hard, and not only were crews reduced to the barest minimum to sail the ships but often loads would exceed what was prudent and safe – either just overfilled with whatever was being carried, or the contracted load would have been augmented by separate goods carried by the ship’s captain as a means of making some extra money. In any event the load meant that the Rechabite was perilously low in the water, with precious little freeboard [that is the distance between the deck or upper edge of the side of the vessel and the waterline]. This would mean that any bigger waves or a sudden swell would easily swamp the boat. The Rechabite’s openness, a virtue when it came to loading and unloading, would hugely compromise its seaworthiness.

Thus did the ship begin to make its way up through Ramsey Sound on that fateful Wednesday, only she was lying desperately low in the water. Upon hitting the first rougher waters of the sound, the Rechabite’s bow ploughed down through the water and sunk, taking the two crew with her. It must have been an awful sight for the horrified onlookers. Had Levi Davies [owner and captain] and his single crewmember John Llywellyn any misgivings when they set out, or had their fears about being overloaded not filled each with a fear of sinking? Did either stand any chance of surviving or was the ghastly occurrence too sudden and possibly unexpected? Had either of them any sense of the mortal danger they were in except at the very end? I have sailed over the very same bit of water many, many times, and the souls of the dead – many more besides these two unfortunate sailors – rise up from the sixty feet of raging depths to fill my imagination. Such a beautiful place, yet so savage. Fate is truly irrevocable is these waters....

The name ‘Rechabite’ is biblical – a Rechabite was a descendant of Jonadab, son of Rechab, who neither drank wine nor dwelled in houses. The reference comes from The Book of Jeremiah, chapter 35, vv 6-7. A temperance society was named after this. Was Levi Davies teetotal? Did he live on his ship, like a nautical nomad?

PIANO CONCERTO in D  

[1998] - this version is slightly revised, and the sounds are artificial (EastWest sound libraries)

This work was composed over two months in late 1997/early 1998 - completed on 20th February '98 and received its only performance in St Mary's Church with Duncan Honeybourne as soloist [the sound files are below]. It is dedicated to Richard Dickins in gratitude for his directing of my Songs of Time. The concert was, as all my concerts seem to be, long and demanding on the limited rehearsal on the day, with several other works of mine also being played [the Jackdaw of Rheims, Seven Folksong Ballads, and more]. There are four movements: the first is a Prelude, a moto perpetuo. There follows a sad, intense Sarabande which was directly influenced by the news of the death of my Godfather, David Street. It features long and expressive melodies for both solo violin and 'cello. The last two movements are played together with no proper pause between them: an energetic scherzo-like 12/8 Toccata which leads directly to a Fugue

SONGS of TIME 

This work was performed in September 1997 in St Mary's Church, Dorchester, by the Imperial College Symphony Orchestra, soprano soloist Jenny Hockey, and the Occasional Singers, all directed by Richard Dickins. Just before the performance was due to begin, the principal horn player was unable to play. Consequently the rest of the horn section had to step up to the mark, and it is the fourth horn part which is missing.

As it happens, a few weeks before this performance, whilst I was in London wandering around near the back of the Albert Hall one afternoon, I heard a horn section practising in one of the rehearsal rooms of the Royal College of Music, and this music sounded quite familiar. After a while I realised why – it was my music, the Songs of Time, and I felt a little bit taller as I went about my business for the rest of that day!

In the sixth movement, To His Coy Mistress, one of the percussion players responsible for some huge cymbal crashes miscounted the number of bars before his entry, playing his part with splendid enthusiasm but in entirely the wrong place! I have attempted to minimise the shock of this using some clever sound editing software, with partial success. It is just one of those things that can happen in a live performance.

1 The Heritage

2 Life

3 The Flower Girl

4 It Is Not

5 Inward Light

6 To His Coy Mistress

7 Eternity

8 Everyone Sang

This work came into being as a result of a successful application to the Arts for Everyone scheme (part of the lottery grants) whose idea was to bring together the Occasional Singers, the Imperial College Symphony Orchestra (with Richard Dickins) and an original, new score, a group (in this case quite large) of expectant performers, and even for the first time in my life, a small fee. It was very hard to find enough quality time, energy and concentration that composing a full-scale work demands, on top of my work, but the tremendous opportunity of writing for so many eager and talented performers helped hugely. I set my alarm each night for about 3.30am and worked for three uninterrupted hours every day for months.

I researched many texts and made several decisions, even starting composing: (the Rime of the Ancient Mariner; the Eve of St Agnes; Oberon’s Palace; Goblin Market; An Hymne to Heavenly Beauty (Spencer); etc). Copyright permission to set TS Eliot’s Ash Wednesday was refused; I made up a collection of poems entitled “The Conversation Of Prayers” comprising poems of Dylan Thomas, William Blake and Henry Vaughan, but found the Thomas too lyrical to set to music (although some years later I did set Fern Hill). In the end it was the sheer urgency of the spring months flying by that helped me to select the poetry which comprises Songs of Time, but the decision to stay even with these texts and commit myself to the composition was certainly not an easy one to make without the panic of the September deadline.

The texts have a strong common theme, expressing much of my own philosophy: the passage of Time add our mortality dictate a necessity to get on with and enjoy, if possible, the "here-and-now", most eloquently put by the Andrew Marvell extract (To His Coy Mistress). Dylan Thomas too, in one of the poems of his that I came near to setting, used some of the same imagery: 

wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 

and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 

do not go gentle into that good night. 

Much of the language of the poems in Songs of Time concerns flowers and song; my music attempts to highlight these symbolic images.

Of the eight movements, six have been written since early June 1997, in time for the first choral rehearsal in mid July. Two of the songs are re-workings: the Flower Girl was written in 1988, without the chorus part since added, and Inward Light dates from 1995 and was originally an unaccompanied motet. I invested much thought into the integration of all the movements into a unified whole, and there are consequently numerous cross references – melodic, harmonic, and a germinal motif that occurs in many of the movements. I have linked literary ideas from different poems by using common motifs, (motto themes), in a way first tried by the 19th-century Romantic composers (Berlioz with the idees fixes, Wagner with the leitmotif). The coming together of these ideas is carefully considered and helps unify the individual songs into a collective whole.

One often hears complaints in choral/vocal music about clarity of some of the text. It has always seemed to me that the text itself will often be unclear, especially when set, for example, in a polyphonic, contrapuntal style with different bits of text in different voices at the same time. Of course the texts (especially in Songs of Time) are hugely important, but it is the essence of the texts that should be borne in mind; the music is directly related at all times to the meaning of the text, and as one becomes familiar with the music, the full relationship will become better understood. I do not think it is valid, in this sort of work, to expect to hear all the words.

The soprano soloist is Jenny Hockey [now 'Bartlett'] who had been a student at Weymouth College and who went to Cardiff to develop her fabulous singing technique. I had all but lost touch with Jenny, as she went abroad with her husband to do missionary work. But she returned to Dorset, as her husband Richard is the Vicar in nearby Wool. How grateful I am to her, as, along with Richard Dickins' splendid Imperial College students, she produced a flawless and wonderfully expressive performance of my work.  

The case for a NATIONAL REHEARSAL ORCHESTRA  for NEW MUSIC 

Judging by my own experience of approaching professional orchestras with a view to being able to offer a new score for consideration, I believe that there is a need for a full-sized professional symphony orchestra dedicated entirely to playing contemporary music. The advantages of having such an institution would be manifold:

• it would provide opportunities for contemporary composers to hear their music played at a high level, even if just in rehearsal

• it would take away the uncomfortable need of other professional orchestras to risk box office receipts by performing new, unknown and unpopular music

• it would concentrate the relatively small number of people (nonetheless a sizeable minority) who are interested in listening to new music into one place, thus maximising audience numbers for such music

• it would enable some composers to become better known, creating a demand to hear the music played by the established professional orchestras

• by playing through to a high standard many other scores, it would enable a great deal more composers than at present to hear their music, and to go away with a recording

• it would provide our country with a far better reflection of the development of contemporary music culture than happens now

• it would give an opportunity for professional players who become fed up with the endless repeats of 'safe' repertoire 'classics' to reinvigorate their desire to play at the highest level

• and it would encourage many more excellent composers to write for orchestra, rather than give up because of the present inaccessibility to the closed shop of the modern professional orchestra.

A National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music would, like any other professional orchestra, require some state subsidy. And, like any other professional orchestra, it would be required to make most of its income through box office receipts and commercial recordings. In addition, agreements would be made with the composers of all the music played that in the event of any scores or individual composers becoming famous and established in the national and international repertoire, a percentage of the income generated for the individual would be given to the National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music.

The National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music should be constituted like any other professional body, with a principal conductor and a core of experienced professional players, as well as the usual administrative staff required to run it all. In addition there would need to be several assessors whose sole task would be to examine submitted scores, not to judge their aesthetic qualities, but rather to be able to select only those scores that were competent and practical. I believe that there should also be encouragement for new performing artists, and new conductors. It should become the natural home of musical opportunity, an institution genuinely interested in new music as well as any suitably skilled players or directors interested in promoting contemporary composition.

The experiences I have had trying to have my scores looked at have been very frustrating. Most of the orchestras I have approached do not have any mechanisms for contemporary composers like me to make proper contact. Very few seem to have any staff dedicated to liaising with composers, and this is in spite of the fact that there appear to be considerably more administrative staff than the professional players they are supposed to be supporting. It is little wonder that there is huge antipathy towards contemporary new music, because running costs are huge (and arts grants are usually the only way orchestras can survive these days) and new music is unpopular and keeps audiences away. Such orchestras have to design programs based on popularity in order to attract the punters. Quite often the token gesture towards new music is based on having a residency for or association with just one composer, or maybe a link with one of the national music colleges. Sometimes there are 'invitations' to new composers to submit scores for a day's workshop of a chosen few. In reality these are hugely oversubscribed, and, because very few scores are chosen, enormously disappointing to most. Besides, there are strict limitations as to the type of score required: a specific instrumentation and a set length limit. These are very closed shop affairs, and in no way encourage composers in general. It might tick Arts Council boxes but is not at all sympathetic to the culture of contemporary music.

The depressing truth of the contemporary music world is that most of it never gets heard. Instead there is a relatively small number of popular contemporary composers – by and large writing in a fairly easy and popularist style – (often described by commentators as 'the greatest living composers'). Thus does the "catch-22" circle continue to go round and round: only by being performed over and over do any contemporary composers become well-known, but until they are well known no professional orchestra will be prepared to play their music. This is terribly disappointing and dispiriting, and creates an unrepresentative idea of what our contemporary music culture actually is. If media success is all that determines what music is performed then we are doing a terrible disservice to the composing talent of our country. For this reason, I firmly believe that we desperately need a National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music.

 

 

FERN HILL

Fern Hill was the centrepiece of my PhD submission and was performed on Saturday, June 11th 2005 in St Mary's Church [Dorchester] alongside The Lark Ascending, Flos Campi, Greensleeves and Valiant for Truth. This is the programme note for Fern Hill:

Fern Hill – première

- a setting of the poem by Dylan Thomas, for tenor solo, solo quintet, chamber orchestra and choir [the Occasional Singers]

• Tenor solo Brian Parsons
• Violin solo Kate Hawes
• Viola solo David Hedges
• Cello solo Damian Knollys
• Harp Angela Moore
• Celeste Peter Oakes

Some initial sketches were made in December 2003, but most of the writing was done in the following Autumn, and the work was completed in December 2004. I chose this particular poem both because I have always loved the lyricism of Dylan Thomas’ poetry, and because this poem is such a strong description of childhood, and the pain of leaving that state. I chose the instrumentation around the other main works we intended to perform in this concert – the Vaughan Williams Flos Campi and The Lark Ascending – and I decided to include a solo concertante group alongside the orchestra, and to have a choir part integral to the orchestral texture in a similar way to Flos Campi. Brian Parsons agreed – on trust (before the music had been written) – to sing the solo tenor part, and it is for him specifically that I wrote the vocal line. All the other soloists agreed likewise to be part of the project, and this also shaped to some extent what I have been able to compose.

Although the concertante group is a specified five instruments – string trio, celeste and harp – in truth there are many other soloists in the chamber orchestra, especially in the woodwind, most of whom are doubling (that is, playing one of two instruments). In particular the bass clarinet/clarinet and the flute/piccolo are both very full parts, and soloistic to a great extent.

The music has an intensity and intimacy heightened by the use of so many solo instruments with the orchestra. The colours and moods mirror the textual narrative, from the relaxed eternity of youth to the pain of growing into adulthood and forever losing the innocence. The poem’s ending incorporates the entire theme: “Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means/ Time held me green and dying/ Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”

The role of the choir is my music is orchestral. Only the tenor soloist sings in the first person – the choir text is used to heighten the effect, to support the solo, except at the end perhaps, when the music quietly fades away on the final three words of the poem “though I sang in my chains like the sea”. For substantial sections the choir is wordless.

There are clear sections: the opening orchestral music lays out much of the thematic material, which is transformed throughout the work as the mood of the poem suggests, before the tenor begins.

There is a huge crescendo into the fast second section, where the descriptive nature of the carefree child is echoed through the entire orchestra – listen in particular to the huntsman’s horn (horn and muted trumpet) for “And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves/ Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold”; and the tubular bells under the words “And the sabbath rang slowly/ In the pebbles of the holy streams” and the running of the water depicted by the strings, celeste and harp; the sudden fortissimo as “the owls were bearing the farm away”.

The middle section is the spiritual centre too, as the poem likens the child to Adam in the Garden: “…it was all/ Shining, it was Adam and maiden…” culminating in the ecstatic “on to the fields of praise”.

There is a hint of menace about the next section, as ‘the child’ runs his “heedless ways” – the accompaniment at this point is very busy and has a strong pulse – eventually leading to the sad, resigned departure from the childhood state, likened to the expulsion from the Garden: “Before the children green and golden/ Follow him out of grace”.

After a brief, somewhat hollow “nothing I cared, in the lamb white days…” there is a sudden and dramatic comprehension in the words “and wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land”. The final section is a poignantly nostalgic reflection of the very opening, but darker in mood, before the quiet and intense defiance of the final line “Though I sang in my chains like the sea”, dying away to nothing on a timpani roll…

The poem:

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

     The night above the dingle starry,

     Time let me hail and climb

     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

     Trail with daisies and barley

     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

 

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

     In the sun that is young once only,

     Time let me play and be

     Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

     And the sabbath rang slowly

     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

 

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

     And playing, lovely and watery

     And fire green as grass.

     And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars

     Flying with the ricks, and the horses

     Flashing into the dark.

 

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

     The sky gathered again

     And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

     Out of the whinnying green stable

     On to the fields of praise.

 

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

      In the sun born over and over,

      I ran my heedless ways,

      My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

      Before the children green and golden

      Follow him out of grace,

 

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

      In the moon that is always rising,

      Nor that riding to sleep

      I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means

     Time held me green and dying

     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Dylan Thomas

 

This was the last poem written before Deaths and Entrances was published; it was added to the volume at the proof stage, according to a letter to Dent’s [his publishers] of 18 September 1945:

“I am enclosing a further poem, ‘Fern Hill’, not so far included in the book, which I very much want included as it is an essential part of the feeling and meaning of the book as a whole.”  

Dent’s managed to include it, as the final poem of the volume. It was published in Horizon October 1945, prior to Deaths and Entrances, which came out in February 1946.

The Farm referred to in Fern Hill and in the story “The Peaches” (and elsewhere in Thomas’s work) is an actual farm, Fernhill, occupied at one time by his aunt and uncle (although not at the time the poem was written). Thomas told Edith Sitwell in a letter of 31 March 1946 that ‘Fern Hill’ was finished the previous September, ‘in Carmarthenshire, near the farm where it happened’. This would be the cottage at Blaen Cwm, Llangain, still in the hands of the Thomas family, and to where Thomas’s parents retired from Swansea. Thomas visited them there for long periods during the summer of 1945. On 30 July 1945 when he was there, he wrote to Oscar Williams:

A farmyard outside the window, sows and cows and the farmer’s daughters, what a day of dugs. I’ve been reading all Lawrence’s poems, some aloud to no-one in this bombazine room, and liking them more and more. Do you remember:-

•  O the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
•  Lamps in a wash of rain!
• O the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard!

  O tears on the window pane!

Thomas once said of ‘Fern Hill’: “it’s a poem for evenings and tears”.

(text notes from Everyman: “Collected Poems 1934 – 1953 Dylan Thomas” edited by Walford Davies & Ralph Maud)

CHAMBER SYMPHONY [No.1] in Five Movements

This five-movement chamber symphony is a combination of many elements, most of which go back to music that I composed long ago (some of the material is from my student days). The main composing work was done in 1998 as a string quartet, and this was performed by four BSO friends: Jack Maguire, Kate Stear [now "Hawes"], Stephanie Chambers & Jo Koos. They called themselves "I Strumenti" String Quartet. I went to some of the rehearsals - quite lively affairs! - and for the first time in my life listened to professional performers working on one of my compositions, preparing for a live performance. The quartet was performed in St Mary's Church, Dorchester, in the summer of 1998 alongside the Dvorak piano quintet for which Duncan Honeybourne joined the group.

 

So, although the work still exists as a string quartet, I was never entirely at ease with it - hence I never posted it on this site (there are several substantial works that I have not included on this website). I felt particularly that the long fugue in the final movement was pretty unrelenting, somewhat austere, and needed more colour than was possible with just the four string instruments. It is, essentially, this string quartet which, scored out for a chamber orchestra [picc/fl/ob/CA/cl/bass cl/bsn/contra//2 hns/tpt/tbne/tuba//solo string quintet & strings], constitutes this work.

 

The opening movement has a slow introduction which presents the dominant theme; this is followed by a rhythmic allegro, which is interrupted by slow sections. The material was taken, by and large, from a trio I composed in February 1982 (there were two movements) for 2 horns & bassoon.

 

The second movement (material again from the 1982 trio for 2 horns & bassoon) is an intense, fugal adagio.

 

The third movement - "Allegro Energico" - was originally a piece for clarinet & piano composed in April/May 1981 when I was teaching in Marlborough, for David White and Charles Hickey [cl] to perform at the Calne Festival in 1981.

 

The fourth movement is based mostly on a movement originally written in 1979 as the middle movement of a sonatina for violin & piano - this is posted on this site, and the similarities between the two movements are easy to discern. 

The last movement revolves around a fugue, originally composed when on a camping holiday in France sometime in the late 1980s. It is one of those sizeable scores that preceded Sibelius and is lost somewhere underneath the mess of books and papers that litter the basement of our home. At some point - in 1997/8 when thinking about the finale of my first string quartet - I transcribed it into the four parts in which it was originally conceived. The movement has an introduction which also serves as the first part of the coda. The movement - indeed the whole symphony - concludes with a reminder of the allegro from the first movement.

This 'performance' is once again created using the EastWest sound library.

 

 

 

BASEMENT JAZZ 

Several years ago, whilst I was convalescing from major shoulder surgery (for the second time), I also found sleeping difficult - actually I still only sleep for up to three hours and frequently work in the small hours. I could not do a great deal and started to play around with some light swing arrangements of some of my favourite numbers, getting my 'virtual band' to perform the music. As I [live and] work in the basement [a dry-lined cellar] I called this little collection 'Rick's Basement Jazz'. Although I have done over thirty arrangements, there are only a very few anywhere near fit for playing... 

SPANISH FOLKSONGS - for solo violin & chamber ensemble

This full-length work was composed especially for the "durnoVibe" festival in 2009, and for the violinist Jenny Curiel. It is cast in a large single movement form rather like a violin concerto with a virtuoso part for the soloist, and is based on a number of Spanish folk songs as well as some pastiche folk song-like themes [I originally arranged and composed music for two Lorca plays performed at Weymouth College, and these smaller works formed the basis of Spanish Folksongs. It is not simply a group of tunes following each other like a medley, but a sequence cemented together with substantial portions of free composition based upon the melodies. At the end there is a long coda [when the lower brass instruments are heard for the first time] drawing upon and combining themes heard much earlier.

I cannot recall anymore exactly which of the melodies is pastiche - mostly the melodies are genuine: but not all!

THE VIRGIN'S SONG 

This piece of music holds a very special and important place in my heart. It was written in 1979 as a commission (no money involved!) by Margaret Kempson who was the conductor of the Marlborough Choral Society. A local woman, Nicky Thompson, was the designated alto soloist, and she gave the first performance in St Peter's Church at the west end of the High Street. It was the first time ever that I heard something that I had written for orchestra played by some quite good players, and the magic of that experience has remained with me very strongly ever since.

I made some very small revisions to the scoring in 1999 (in particular adding a harp).

St Peter's Church, to which I was herded as a schoolboy in compulsory worship (as was the case in those days – a daily service when I first went to school, but only on a Sunday by the time I left!) is now deconsecrated, attracting far more people to the craft stalls and cafe inside. It is also an excellent concert venue. The Trust which runs the church is very successful at maintaining the fabric of the building, and promoting its interests far and wide. My parents were both involved from the beginning – my father was treasurer for many years, and my mother cleaned and made flower arrangements there. For several years they both guided tourists up the steep steps of the tower – my father as an octogenarian was a lot fitter than most of the tourists half his age!

Cardinal Wolsey was ordained in St Peters Church. This alone sets this place apart from your average parish church!

This recording is by Louise Wayman.