Programme Notes L - Z

Lamentations was commissioned privately by a friend of Emma Julieta Barreiro Isabel to mark the completion of her thesis, Translated Tears: Exigesis and Politics in Seventeenth-Century Versions of the Lamentations of Jeremiah in England and Spain (1587-1660), Edinburgh University, 2000. The initial approach was made, indirectly, by e-mail, in July 1998. The suggested medium was voice and piano and other “clues” were provided to help determine the character of the commissioned work. John Donne was the subject of part of the thesis and it was eventually decided that the entire piece should focus on extracts from Donne’s verse translation, entitled The Lamentations of Jeremy, the extracts chosen being primarily those featured in the thesis.

With no performers or performances in view, little progress was made until 2000 when work on Par la bande (for Nigel North) and The Song of Songs (for Theatre of Voices) pointed the way to a very happy solution, namely Paul Hillier and Nigel North. Nigel suggested I should consider using a theorbo rather than a lute; thanks to its character and tuning, it is particularly well-suited to accompaniment.

There are four settings. The titles are the opening words of the extracts:

How sits this city (LAM. I 1-3)
I am the man (LAM. III 1-9, 18-29)
The anointed Lord (LAM. IV 20)
For oughtest thou, O Lord (LAM. V 22)

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Lento (1991)

Lento owes much of its character to its original context; to the elevating proximity of Wagner’s prelude to Parsifal, with which it was preceded at its first performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican Hall in March 1991. Lento is monolithic, major and minor triads generate a sequence of processionals. The tempo is more or less constant. It uses the same orchestral forces as the Wagner, though deployment is radically different. Most of Lento is scored for strings only. A central episode turns the spotlight on the trombones and the bassoons. Otherwise, woodwind, brass and timpani serve primarily to lend weight to restatements of the two principal subjects. The first subject is repeated three times and the second subject once only. There are four episodes or interludes. Respect for the ‘grain’ is the guiding principle. One of the aims in composing music is to enhance the medium. It is important to achieve ‘a good sound’. So one’s primary concern is with the medium and the material.

Mention of “material” raises the spectre of experimental music. Mainstream composers refer to their “ideas”. These words suggest different degrees of ‘aesthetic distance’. Material is external whereas one wrestles ideas come from within. One has a conversation with material whereas one wrestles with ideas. Many experimental composers consort with painters, and maybe the attitude of respectful detachment is common to both groups.

This detachment of experimentalists (nicely ambiguous, like the “murmuration of bees”!) should not be confused with estrangement. Indeed, familiarisation, or ‘feeling at home’, with the material is part of the process of composing. Witness Carl Ruggles, hammering out the same chord over and over again to give it (as he himself put it) “the test of time”. Few composers go all the way, with John Cage, in their concern to “let sounds be themselves”. The aims of experimentalists are many and various. The English composer Chris Newman is an interesting case: the problem is not one of detachment, but one of transcendence; he strives to transcend his material.

How do we find our material? Pure inspiration is very rare. Most ‘findings’ involve a search, using some sort of idiosyncratic technique. No doubt many composers ‘explore’ at the piano. Stravinsky was one of them. Morton Feldman was another, at least some of the time. Feldman once remarked, “If I was going to wait for an idea to write a piece I’d go out of my mind, I’d commit suicide”. The most useful technique is that which best enables you to drop your guard (but just for a moment!); that allows you to be taken by surprise. Pressure of time can work wonders but there is no guarantee of success. I once wrote a piano piece (Slow Waltz) in four highly intensive sessions, each merely five minutes long. This is an extreme case, but external factors frequently play a role. There are times when the only ‘technique’ available is to do whatever you can, whenever you can, and with whatever means come to hand. It is likely that different forms and different media require different techniques. We are back to the guiding principle of respect for the ‘grain’.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Lullaby (1983)

Lullaby was written in 1983 and first performed by Ian Mitchell and Helen Verney. The preludial cello part frames a simple clarinet tune on which it is based.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

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Off Limits is an exuberant solo for tenor saxophone. The principal idea is an arching melody exploring the full range of the instrument.

Off Limits was commissioned for Federico Mondelci by Warwick Arts Society and first performed at the Warwick & Leamington Festival in July 2002.

© 2004 Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Par la bande (2000)

Par la bande was commissioned by the King of Hearts Arts Centre in Norwich to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Six composers were asked to write a piece for one of six early music groups; each was based on the opening bars of the Sarabande from Bach’s second cello suite in D minor. “Par la bande” means “in a roundabout way” and suggests a circularity of from and a less than direct approach to the original theme. This ten-minute set of variations was written for Nigel North and takes account of Nigel’s own transcription of Bach’s suite which transposes the music up a fifth and fills it out, in keeping with the lute’s range and character.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Random Girl (2003)

Random Girl was commissioned by the ensemble New Noise with funds from the PRS Foundation. The title came from my son's description of a chance encounter in a local pub. This duet could be seen as such an encounter and places the oboe and vibraphone on equal terms.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Rest and Recreation

Rest and Recreation was commissioned by Tubalaté with funds from the Arts Council of England. The pairing of a slowish and a lively movement has long been attractive to composers, certainly since the days of Pavanes and Galliards.

If Rest is a lullaby, Recreation could be described as rousing.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Shiftwork (1994)

Shiftwork was commissioned by Ensemble Bash with funds provided by the London Arts Board, and is part of the ensemble’s ‘Carrier Bag’ series of pieces. This series was created with the problems of touring large percussion set-ups in mind: one of the terms of the commission was that all of the percussion instruments should be portable enough to fit in a carrier bag. The composer took this to heart and the only instruments used are small sleigh bells (sometimes played with thimbles), two pairs of maracas, and four pottery bowls with clay baking beads inside.

Shiftwork is based around shifting reflective patterns and on the interplay created when these patterns interlink. The combined rhythms create a constant pulse, which is well described by the work’s original title: Sleigh Ride. The 4-minute piece is sectional and this is made clear as pairs of players change instruments, rotating pairs of players 1+4, 2+3, 1+3, 2+4, with some use of phase technique.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

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The Song of Songs, composed in September 2000, was commissioned for Theatre of Voices by Middlebury College, Vermont, for its Concert Series. It uses only a tiny part of the biblical text:

The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.
Behold, thou art fair, my love,
Behold, thou art fair, thou hast dove’s eyes.
The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Suite from Delicate (1996)

1.Pulse
2.Triangle 1
3.Easy
4.Triangle 2
5.Solo
6.Ending

This suite is a set of six pieces extracted from seventy-odd minutes of music for Delicate, a Motionhouse Dance Theatre production premièred at Warwick Arts Centre in March 1996 and subsequently toured throughout the country. The work of Motionhouse owes much of its vigour and richness to the considerable strengths of its regular team of dancers, choreographers and designers but it benefits also from the generous scope of its collaborations. In the case of Delicate, the company were eager to work both with BCMG and with the writer, A. L. Kennedy, whose powerful and acutely funny text played a central role and certainly stimulated many of the musical ideas.

The music was commissioned by BCMG with support through their ‘Sound Investment’ scheme. The medium of two cellos was chosen for its range and versatility. A third player, a percussionist, was added to help take the (considerable) strain. Lack of space in the smaller venues restricted the size of the percussion set to a single ‘timpano’, a pair of congas and a glockenspiel.

© Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Tendrils (2004)

Tendrils was composed for the Smith Quartet. It was commissioned jointly by the BBC and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Tendrils is a continuous movement of undulating lines. Although the piece seems to unfold, the impulse was lyrical and experimental. The first task was to compose the process.

© 2004 Howard Skempton
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

That Music Always Round Me (2003)

That Music Always Round Me was commissioned by Paul Hindle for Manchester University Chorus, in memory of its conductor, Keith Elcombe. Paul's original idea was a piece to celebrate the opening of the Music Department's new concert hall, but this changed following Keith's death in April 2002. He urged me, however, to avoid the sombre tone of a memorial piece and to aim for "something about the joy of singing, music and sounds". Walt Whitman's poem, 'That Music Always Round Me' was his suggestion, and this eventually (after weeks of research) seemed an ideal choice. (First thoughts should always be taken seriously!)

Whitman's poetry abounds in references to music and song but nowhere more so than in 'That Music Always Round Me'. My setting acknowledges the serenity and timelessness of these opening words, the basses rising from a low D. "But now a chorus I hear," sings Whitman, highlighting tenor, soprano and "transparent base (sic)", which here initiates a fugato section (with "the different voices winding in and out"). The subsequent passage is reflective and leads back to the opening music.

© Howard Skempton, 2003
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Winter Sunrise (1996)

Winter Sunrise was premièred by the Firebird String Trio at the 1996 Huddersfield Festival. It was written at the request of Shelly Frape in memory of her husband, Andrew, a close friend of the Festival. The piece owes its title, and much of its elegiac but optimistic character, to a poem by Mary Webb whose fine lyric verse is somewhat overshadowed by her novels.

The piece is a single movement, song-like in its directness and simplicity of form.

© Howard Skempton, 1996
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

The Witches' Wood (1990)

The Witches' Wood was commissioned by Cambridge New Music Players and first performed at St George's Church, Bloomsbury Way, London, in April 1991. It is a chromatic, but spare, setting of a poem by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907).

The Witches' Wood

There was a wood, a witches' wood,
All the trees therein were pale.
They bore no branches green and good,
But as it were a grey nun's veil.

They talked and chattered in the wind
From morning dawn to set of sun,
Like men and women that have sinned,
Whose thousand evil tongues are one.

Their roots were like the hands of men,
Grown hard and brown with clutching gold.
Their foliage women's tresses when
The hair is withered, thin, and old.

There never did a sweet bird sing
For happy love about his nest.
The clustered bats on evil wing
Each hollow trunk and bough possessed.

And in the midst a pool there lay
Of water white, as tho' a scare
Had frightened off the eye of day
And kept the Moon reflected there.

© Howard Skempton, 1990
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

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