Lento CD BOOK 8/20/03 12:46 PM Page 1 C E D S L S G HOWARD SKEMPTON I N BBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA • MARK WIGGLESWORTH, CONDUCTOR Lento CD BOOK 8/20/03 12:46 PM Page 2 HOWARD SKEMPTON COLIN MATTHEWS IN CONVERSATION WITH HOWARD SKEMPTON Lento 12’57 CM: Did you see Lento, when you wrote it, as a would suggest, are primarily choral composers. I CM: I’ve always been impressed by the way change of direction? have been asked, more than once, to produce a you’ve been very single-minded about the music BBC Symphony Orchestra choral version of Lento: something I’ve resisted. you want to write, while being very open-minded HS: No, I saw it as a characteristic piece. I’ve about the music you care for. It’s no coincidence Mark Wigglesworth conductor always been devoted to what I call “chorales”. My My instrumental music has not been affected. The that NMC released Lento at the same time as a two previous orchestral works had been called next orchestral piece after Lento was The Light disc of James Dillon (East 11th Street, NMC Chorales and Chorales 2, and I remember Martin Fantastic for the English Chamber Orchestra: a D004) and a very eclectic mix with the Composers Cotton (then a BBC producer, and clearly the man more buoyant piece, as the title suggests. It’s Ensemble Songbook (NMC D003). Do you feel responsible for commissioning the piece) possible I would have written another piece like that the divisions that are often perceived as suggesting that Lento could easily have been Lento if I’d received a commission from a large inherent in contemporary music – complexity called Chorales 3. I began work on Lento with the symphony orchestra, but that hasn’t happened. versus minimalism versus post-modernism, etc – overwhelming urge to produce a good tutti sound CM: I remember your enthusiasm for Górecki long have any relevance any more? and it was that which led me to simple triads. The before he was known outside avant garde circles! radical, unprecedented decision was to use nothing HS: These labels are irritating but they’re not The association with those composers is something else. going to go away. (I’m afraid I’ve said that about of a misreading, not least because your music one or two composers!) Complexity and CM: I think it’s fair to say that Lento reached, if seems to me to be essentially humanistic. Is that minimalism are of salient concern. Beautiful not a wider audience, then at least a different one how you see it? simplicity and breath-taking complexity go hand in from your normal following. Has that had an HS: Yes, essentially humanistic. This is reflected in hand in science, so why not also in art? effect on subsequent pieces? my short-list of favourite composers which has Minimalism too brings rich rewards if it is truly HS: It’s true that Lento has reached a different always included Britten and Górecki alongside experimental, exploring uncharted territory. So, audience, thanks to the CD. I suspect that many of Feldman and Cardew: all very humanly complex these labels are significant but I see no reason to these people sing in choirs because I’ve had a fair characters and all very practical. I have recently flaunt them. There’s more enterprise (as Yeats said number of choral commissions in recent years. written some liturgical music but I see nothing in “A Coat”) in walking naked. Lento may well have prompted people to associate strange in simultaneously accepting God and me with Górecki, Tavener and Pärt, all of whom, I denying His existence! August 2003 3 Photo: Clive Barda Lento CD BOOK 8/20/03 12:46 PM Page 4 LENTO PULL-OUT NMC CATALOGUE The following discs have been released on the NMC label as at August 2003. They are available from all good Lento owes much of its character to its original degrees of ‘aesthetic distance’. Material is external record stores, or direct from NMC at the address on page 11. context; to the elevating proximity of Wagner’s whereas ideas come from within. One has a prelude to Parsifal, with which it was preceded at conversation with material whereas one wrestles Jonathan Harvey Howard Skempton Harrison Birtwistle Bill Hopkins & Bhakti Lento Melencolia I Anthony Gilbert its first performance by the BBC Symphony with ideas. Many experimental composers consort Spectrum BBC Symphony Orchestra Meridian Sensation Guy Protheroe, conductor Mark Wigglesworth, conductor Ritual Fragment En attendant Orchestra in the Barbican Hall in March 1991. with painters, and maybe the attitude of respectful NMC D001 NMC D005 • CD SINGLE London Sinfonietta & Voices Pendant Mary King, mezzo-soprano Nine or Ten Osannas Lento is monolithic. Major and minor triads detachment is common to both groups. Michael Finnissy, piano Bingham String Quartet Antony Pay, clarinet Music Projects/London generate a sequence of processionals. The tempo Music by Judith Weir, Michael Music by Philip Cashian, Michael Thompson, horn Alison Wells, soprano This detachment of experimentalists (nicely Finnissy, Chris Newman and Martin Butler and David Helen Tunstall, harp Alexander Balanescu, violin Howard Skempton. Nicholls. Christopher van Kampen, cello Richard Bernas, conductor is more or less constant. It uses the same Oliver Knussen, conductor ambiguous, like the ‘murmuration of bees’!) NMC D002 • ARTISTS SERIES NMC D006 • ARTISTS SERIES NMC D014 orchestral forces as the Wagner, though NMC D009 should not be confused with estrangement. Indeed, Mary Wiegold’s Songbook David Lumsdaine Robin Holloway Andrzej Panufnik deployment is radically different. Most of Lento is familiarisation, or ‘feeling at home’, with the Music by John Woolrich, Aria for Edward John Eyre Second Concerto for Orchestra scored for strings only. A central episode turns the Judith Weir, Colin Matthews, What shall I sing? Cello Concerto BBC Symphony Orchestra material is part of the process of composing. Simon Bainbridge, Howard Gemini London Symphony Orchestra Oliver Knussen & Stefan Skempton, Harrison Birtwistle, Mary Wiegold & Mstislav Rostropovich, cello Asbury, conductors spotlight on the trombones and bassoons. Hugh Wolff, conductor Witness Carl Ruggles, hammering out the same Philip Wilby, Keith Tippett, Jane Manning, sopranos NMC D015M • MID-LENGTH CD Otherwise, woodwind, brass and timpani serve Dominic Muldowney, Sally Barry Guy, double bass NMC D010S • CD SINGLE chord over and over again to give it (as he himself Beamish, Bayan Northcott, John Baddely & John Rye, Giles Swayne Elisabeth Lutyens primarily to lend weight to restatements of the two put it) ‘the test of time’. Few composers go all the David Bedford and Michael narrators Cry Nyman, with interludes by Elgar Howarth, conductor Chamber Concerto No 1 John Dowland. BBC Singers principal subjects. The first subject is repeated three way, with John Cage, in their concern to ‘let NMC D007 The Valley of Hatsu-Se John Poole, conductor with and other works NMC D016 times and the second subject once only. There are sounds be themselves’. The aims of Composers Ensemble Simon Holt Jane’s Minstrels Dominic Muldowney & Canciones Jane Manning, soprano Roger Smalley four episodes or interludes. Respect for the ‘grain’ experimentalists are many and various. The English Keith Tippett, conductors Roger Montgomery, conductor …era madrugada Pulses for 5 x 4 players is the guiding principle. One of the aims in NMC D003 • ARTISTS SERIES Shadow Realm NMC D011 composer Chris Newman is an interesting case: the Sparrow Night BBC Symphony Orchestra James Dillon NMC Sampler Richard Bernas, conductor composing music is to enhance the medium. It is problem is not one of detachment, but one of Nash Ensemble East 11th Street Fiona Kimm, mezzo-soprano A first sampler of extracts from NMC D017M • MID-LENGTH CD important to achieve ‘a good sound’. So one’s transcendence; he strives to transcend his material. Windows and Canopies Gareth Hulse, oboe NMC’s releases. La Femme Invisible Dominic Muldowney primary concern is with the medium and material. Lionel Friend, conductor NMC D012 • SAMPLER Music Projects/London NMC D008 Oboe Concerto How do we find our material? Pure inspiration is Richard Bernas, conductor Barry Guy London Symphony Orchestra NMC D004 After the Rain Roy Carter, oboe Mention of ‘material’ raises the spectre of very rare. Most ‘findings’ involve a search, using Michael Tilson Thomas, City of London Sinfonia conductor experimental music. Mainstream composers refer some sort of idiosyncratic technique. No doubt Richard Hickox, conductor NMC D018S • CD SINGLE to their ‘ideas’. These words suggest different many composers ‘explore’ at the piano. Stravinsky NMC D013S • CD SINGLE 4 Lento CD BOOK 8/20/03 12:46 PM Page 6 Wavesongs Mark-Anthony Turnage John Woolrich Katharine Norman Richard Barrett Minna Keal Edward Elgar/ Gordon Crosse Music by Colin Matthews, Lament for a Hanging Man Lending Wings London Vanity Cello Concerto Anthony Payne Memories of Morning: Night Michael Finnissy, Alexander On All Fours A Farewell Trilling Wire BBC Symphony Orchestra Ballade Symphony No 3 Cello Concerto Black Riddle Goehr, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Nash Ensemble Katharine Norman, tape Arturo Tamayo, conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra BBC Symphony Orchestra Some Marches on a Ground Roger Smalley and Gordon and other works Martin Robertson, saxophones Jonathan Cooper, clarinet NMC D041S • CD SINGLE Alexander Baillie, cello Andrew Davis, conductor BBC Symphony Orchestra Crosse. Composers Ensemble Fiona Kimm, mezzo-soprano NMC D034 • SONIC ARTS SERIES Martina Baillie, piano NMC D053 • ARCHIVE SERIES Alexander Baillie, cello Alexander Baillie, cello Ian Brown, piano Brodsky Quartet Melinda Maxwell, oboe Martyn Brabbins, conductor Susan Bickley, mezzo-soprano Mary Wiegold, soprano Andrew Ball, piano Christopher van Kampen, cello Klang Music by Harrison Birtwistle, NMC D048S • CD SINGLE Alexander Goehr Martyn Brabbins, conductor Jane Atkins, viola NMC D019 • ARTISTS SERIES Oliver Knussen, conductor Works for tape and Melinda Maxwell and NMC D058 Diego Masson, conductor David Bedford Arianna NMC D024M • MID-LENGTH CD instruments by Jonty Harrison, Simon Holt.