Und Gott sprach...

Her way in her may jour-

-nal quiff or a bear

The  litter large ease us

Ladle hiss wheated

Thirst Tarzan herb right Skye

Lurk dowry lay

Early tiller cheeses

As lee ponder hey

The cat all a Lerwick

Herb a beer wake

Spud Lidl orgies us

Oak Ryan emails

I’ll have veal or cheeses

Look doubt Prommers guide

Anne stay buy my cider

Till more ninnies nej*

*That's 'no' in Danish, for non-viewers of Forbrydelsen and Borgen.

The view from the (organ) bench

One zen Roy or Davy’s settee

Stood alone leak at a shed

Wear another later bay be

Inner major forest bed

Mare he was some other mile

Gee sirs cry stir litter chai

And a rise alas chassis him

Who whisk gotten law doff ore

Handy shell to wash a stay bull

And degrade all rozzers door

Andy leads is chill dremmon

Tudor play swear he a scone

A Child of the Snows: Progress

You'll be wanting an update, no doubt, on how my cantata A Child of The Snows is progressing.   I'm currently just over half way through getting the notes down on paper/Sibelius, and have only a few small corners to decide what to do with. As I've been trying to convey in this series, the composition process is one of working from both the 'inside outwards' and the 'outside inwards', by which I mean that the surface of the music, that which the listener actually hears, is meant to be the logical meeting point of the overall grand structure and the small detail.

I've reached a point where work starts to pick up as things fall into place (despite taking a little time out to write another piece in the last two weeks). My (quite achievable) aim is now to write two fairly finalised minutes every week, meaning that potentially the work could be done by the end of June. This allows two months for polishing, finishing orchestral parts, proofreading, making a piano reduction and printing before rehearsals starts. I'm boosted by the fact that most of the sections left to write are the most lively and optimistic ones, which are rather easier to spin out that the chromatic angst that makes up the rest of the music.

In brief:

• The opening 6-7 minutes of the piece, apart from the introduction, are pretty much complete and now 'run' together, at least in draft form.  
• The above included, almost all of the choral passages in the outer sections are complete or nearly complete.
• I have either written or have a clear idea for the important transitions in the piece: linking the entries of the chorus and the baritone, and moving into the faster section and out again.

What remains to be written is thus:

• The instrumental introduction, which I intend to be an under-the-breath re-imagining of a baroque 'French overture' with trills, grace notes and the short-long rhythm that will permeate the piece. This will last perhaps 3-4 minutes at fairly moderate tempo.
• About half of the central fast section. I've got the end of the first stanza, an instrumental passage and most of the darker second stanza (in which the baritone makes a brief appearance) down.  What will be really crucial is a convincing central peak, for this will form the climax of the entire work.
• I propose to include an extended violin solo between the faster section and the last two stanzas. It makes sense both musically (a texture not yet fully exploited, a mirror to the instrumental introduction at the opening, and a convincing transition between sections) and practically (the choir get some recovery time after a lot of loud and vigorous singing)
• The ending. Probably fading away into the ether to bring us back to where the piece started from.

Two interesting phenomena occur around this stage in the composition process. The first is that enough of the piece now exists that when even casually thinking about the music, it becomes much easier to imagine new evolutions from the existing material. Many theoreticians have proposed that all through-composed music is essentially a version of 'variations on a theme', even if the 'theme' is as small as a motif or even a gradual harmonic progression. I don't usually have to try very hard to come up with new material that fits its intended function or within the overall landscape of the piece, nor do I have to consciously try and use the motifs already present. The second is a related activity: already-composed passages start to get moved around as better uses for them start to become apparent.  One example is a quiet but tense little figure for semi-chorus, leading into an instrumental passage, which was originally to finish the big climax at the end of the second stanza. I have now considered it to be much more effective after the first stanza, leading into the already-written second entry of the baritone, as the choral lines match up to what precedes it and the string texture leads nicely into what follows. Similarly, certain ideas begin to be discarded for various reasons - a better solution becomes apparent, using the passage would be too unwealdly or tautological, or too difficult to integrate.

As an afterthought, I'm still surprised even after writing a number of choral pieces how much music it actually takes to set a text, even one that seems apparently short. My original target of 20-25 minutes of music is probably going to be accurate, and indeed, consciously or not, the cantata has suggested itself in such a way to fit this length. This may partly be the result of using at least a moderate amount of counterpoint, as a canonic series of entries will obviously last for a longer duration than a homophonic texture. But I think it is also evidence that I am going about the business of writing for singers in an effective way; supplying sufficient places to breathe, allowing the voices to contrast with the orchestra, repeating words and lines where appropriate, writing a mixture of fast and slow music.In the end this all contributes towards the pacing and detail of the music at the listener's level that determines how engaging the experience is.

A Child of the Snows: Introduction

As this blog is, at least in part, a means of discussing compositions, I have decided to write a series on a fairly major choral work I am about to undertake.  Over the next year I plan to provide regular progress updates as well as an insight into the composing process in general. The time-scale I have set myself is to have a pretty much complete draft by Easter and to have the whole thing done by the summer, ready for rehearsals to start in the autumn.

In this post I will start by setting out the brief of the project and some initial thoughts stemming from this:

The only definite stipulations of the commission is that I am to compose a cantata for Christmas 2012, which must be suitable for performance by amateur choral societies and modest orchestral forces, and must set G.K. Chesterton's poem A Child of the Snows.  As this text consists of four fairly short stanzas, I have added two additional poems: another Chesterton entitled A Christmas Carol and Bethlehem Town by the American Eugene Field.

The first consideration must be of what forces to write for. Obviously the chorus comes ready provided: an SATB choir of around fifty, which is big enough to allow divisi. Having considered the texts I decide to use a baritone soloist only. The thinking behind this is that I will alternate verses of the two Chesterton poems, as the subject matter of their respective stanzas flow nicely into one another, and so have the soloist sing A Child of the Snows whilst the chorus take A Christmas Carol. This also has the practical result that each gets to rest their voice(s) whilst the other sings, alongside the musical effect. Having another - most likely female - soloist will, I reason, confuse the narrative coherence of each text, as sufficient contrast is already provided through this alternation of forces.

Orchestrally speaking, the main contingent of the chamber orchestra will be a body of strings, probably no more than two desks to a part. This is mostly out of practicality: firstly, the the larger the orchestra, the more people need to be paid for; also, as the chorus is medium-sized - think BBC Singers rather than BBC Symphony Chorus - an overly large ensemble would present issues of balence. This becomes especially important given that I am writing a religious work, most performances of which will take place in churches, which naturally have a large and resonant acoustic.  To the strings I intend to add piano (am toying with the idea of piano four-hands), possibly oboe and a few other instruments.

Other considerations arise from the nature of the performance: the musical material must be within the technical range of the chorus (they're good enough to do big works by Bach, Brahms and Finzi, and do them well, but naturally there is a limit to what one can reasonably expect from non-professional singers rehearsing one evening a week) and the orchestral parts must be able to be brought up to performance standard on only individual practice time and a rehearsal on the day. I know the orchestra, all of whom are of pro standard, will give their best with whatever they are given, but from past experience I know to aim for the maximum effect via the simplest means. Come to think of it, this is actually a pretty good compositional philosophy in general.

This is probably the biggest project I've taken on to date, as although the orchestration is smaller than for The Sun Rising, the performers will be of a comparable number and the piece is planned to be roughly twice the length, with the total performance time approaching half an hour. It's also the first time that 1) I've written a choral work with accompaniment by an ensemble rather than keyboard (the two trumpets and organ in Benedic Domine don't really constitute an 'ensemble'); 2) I've written for solo voice and chorus in the same work (again, the short solos in Beatus vir and various other works were for untrained choir voices and so don't really count); 3) I've written for baritone soloist and 4) I've written with a particular soloist in mind (other than myself).  I hope these sound like relatively minor neologisms, as I consider them to present no real difficulties in the job of writing the music.

There are some 'miscellaneous' considerations which may or may not a have a bearing on the composition: I have been told that for the première the other two pieces in the concert are planned to be Dvořák's Mass in D and some Christmas carols written by a fellow young composer, Tom Daish.  It is probable that the second performance will use a smaller orchestra than for this as the venue and choir are smaller, so I may need to bear in mind the use of ossia passages and the possibility of keyboard(s) substituting for some instruments.

To finish, I can already say I have sketched out some parts of the piece and have some idea of the overall structure.  We will discuss these first steps in the next post.

'Tis the season...

It's that time of year again, I'm afraid, and there's something I can't put off any longer. I have to make the same plea I always do: Please enjoy your Christmas music in moderation.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't hate Christmas music on principle; in fact there are some wonderfully atmospheric and well-composed songs, carols and oratorios which, on the whole, bear the test of time. I'd just like to not hear the same music on a continuous loop all day, every day, thanks.

I will admit to being particularly intolerant to excessive repetition in general, but there is (mercifully) no other occasion in the calender when the canon of agitated air molecules filling our ears is even half so strictly regulated. Easter, the other great once-primarily-religious-now-swallowed-up-in-a-frenzy-of-enforced-consumerism festival, has somehow never spawned any memorable tunes suitable for incessant reproduction (although there are Easter carols, and various hymns that get trotted out on the appropriate Sunday, but heard literally once a year). Bunnies, chocolate eggs and crucifixion seem so far to have failed to produce any musical treatment capable of capturing the public's attention. But come late (or even early) November, the diet of muzak emanating from shops, televisions and stereos turns wearily predictable. Even the otherwise beautiful Carols from Kings (which we have to watch, and then listen to the Christmas Day repeat in the car going up to visit the grandparents) is based around the same core of tunes, although happily with the addition of more underperformed items in between.

What is worse is that this season of goodwill towards men produces not only broken records but often a concerted attempt to make them as annoying and cliché-ridden as possible. As religion is a bit of a commercial no-no in this country, song lyrics tend to revisit vapid consumerist topics and/or sentimental mush - the more 'cringeable' the better. Proponents of the powerful pro-Christmas lobby have developed a method of shutting down any voices opposing this, namely to cry 'Scrooge!' at the slightest whiff of dissent. Whilst it can often be effective, this tactic, frankly, is avoiding the issue.

Before I give the impression I'm training the majority of my fire on commercial pop music, I'm sad to say that successive years of invariance in programming have all but regulated Messiah and Vivaldi's Gloria, not even a Christmas piece (and neither is two-thirds of Messiah, in fact) into the same category . Yes, I know you want to hear the Hallajujah Chorus again, because we've all forgotten how it goes in just twelve months. Yes, I understand that hearing a similar and possibly equally good work by either composer this year will not do, because that would go against tradition. My dislike (well, relatively speaking) of these pieces is simply a result of the fact that I've had to play their continuo parts year in, year out, often more than once a season.

Particular lowlights of the season include:

Away in a Manger: Now, I don't have children, so I cannot verify if seeing one's offspring singing this together with their peers in the nativity play would, in fact, move me sufficiently to value its creation. It is not, in my opinion, a very good tune, certainly not good enough to warrant three verses. Part of the problem is that the little angels learn the words syllabicly, so that the text of the carol ends up sounding something like 'Ahh-WAY-yin a-ah-main-jer no-OH crib-four-ra bed...' It also has a very dull bass line, which with the voice and instruments I play is understandably not a good tactic for trying to endear me to it.

Merry Christmas Everybody (Slade): Not actually a lot wrong with the song in itself, but, rather like Copland, marred by cheap imitations of it - in this case your mates 'singing' along to it post-pint. The end of the chorus glissandi-coupled-with-an-unexpected-move-to-chord-VI (ie the bit that goes 'It's only just begu-uu-uu-uuuuuun!') is particularly ill-advised for this sort of inebriated karaoke as very few are able to complete the manoeuvre with tuning unscathed. Generally the accuracy resembles that of attempting an Olympic ski slalom in a motorhome. That said, the sound of Noddy Holder crying aloft 'It's Christmassssss!' in the song's closing stages will give me sleepless nights forever.

Let it Snow: Isn't the opening little flute/glockenspiel duet just the most horribly twee phrase ever committed to vinyl? Perfectly formulated to send into a rage anyone who has just watched their decorations tumble mockingly to the floor, having spent twenty minutes on tip-toes up a ladder smothering them in dusty blu-tack.

Synthesised bells/chimes in pop songs: Inevitably heard as a descending scale in the tackyist pop offerings, in blissful ignorance of the fact that real church bells were often rung to announce war, pestilence and famine. Few crimes against music can match the tastelessness of this needless filigree...

...except, perhaps, (sometimes also synthesised) sleigh bells. We may all have enjoyed playing Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride in a junior school arrangement (could your trumpeter do that horse bit at the end either?), but the incessant ching-ching-ching in aforementioned pop songs with cheap production values is also an irritant the strength of industrial grout cleaner. Be very careful should anyone you meet think this is at all charming; they may also like Jedward and believe that Fearne Cotton would make an excellent elected representative. It goes without saying that 'Jingle Bells' is also something I would like not to ever know of again.

So please, be discerning and tasteful in your choice of seasonal soundtrack, and dig out something unusual and interesting to hear this year. And consider supporting the 'John Cage's 4'33" for No.1' campaign...