Simon Holt a table of noises St Vitus in the kettle witness to a snow miracle Colin Currie percussion • Chloë Hanslip violin • Hallé • Nicholas Collon conductor photo © Andrzej Urbaniak Simon Holt a table of noises 1 JUTE 3’30 2 ghost one 0’37 3 fl y 3’35 4 ghost two 1’03 5 a drawer full of eyes 2’38 6 ghost three 0’57 7 Skennin’ Mary 4’11 8 ghost four 1’31 9 table top / ghost fi ve 6’02 10 under glass 3’37 Colin Currie percussion • Hallé • Nicholas Collon conductor 11 St Vitus in the kettle 5’56 Hallé • Nicholas Collon conductor witness to a snow miracle 12 Eulalia of Merida 2’05 13 the tearing, the burning 3’17 14 fl ames become birds 3’26 15 snowfall on ashes 4’17 16 witness 3’12 17 torments 3’10 18 halo 3’52 Chloë Hanslip violin • Hallé • Nicholas Collon conductor Total timing: 57’13 3 Simon Holt Miracles and Memories “I have a feeling that the simpler and more direct something is, the more mysterious it is.” So says the multi award-winning to delve deep into personal as well Simon Holt, refl ecting on his as collective memory as the works journey as an orchestral composer: here attest: the violin concerto, from 1987 and his inaugural BBC witness to a snow miracle (2005), Proms commission, Syrensong, to and the short orchestral showpiece, the present day via the three post- St Vitus in the kettle (2008), explore millennium works that comprise this the macabre yet wonder-inducing illuminating fourth, full album of his martyrdom of child saints; closer to music from NMC. home, the percussion concerto, a table of noises (2007), revels in Holt’s comment points to a the eccentricity of Holt’s taxidermist fascination with the monolithic that great uncle Ashworth. has often informed his work, but which has become steadily more In expressive terms, Holt’s quest crucial to his orchestral writing. His amounts to the probing of stories and propensity for fi nding inspiration ideas that capture his imagination, in literature and poetry, mythology bringing them vividly to life through and visual art is well-known. This the abstract yet physical stuff of is combined with a penchant for musical material. His pieces are outlandish folk tales and a kind of rich with the tension of opposites, oblique ritualism, and a willingness explored through an idiom that is 4 typically highly charged, colouristic Holt’s textures and formal structures and atonal; eschewing ‘systems’ are strikingly idiosyncratic and or theoretical dogma, but rather loaded with aural theatre. The chiselled-out as a sculptor might do, concertos comprise a series of to often fi ligree levels of refi nement. short, episodic movements or tableau; there are seven in snow More deeply, these resources are miracle whilst noises has six, deployed in pursuit of metaphysical interspersed with fi ve, equally questions; not to fi nd answers per characterful “ghost” interludes. In se, but in time-honoured modernist both works the soloist forms the tradition to interrogate concepts, focal point of an orchestral narrative beliefs and the material itself in a which – like that of St Vitus – is full way which somehow pierces through of turbulent momentum arrested by to the heart of the experience. Holt sudden ruptures and fragmentation, has said of St Vitus, “I’m not at all yet intensely subtle and retaining an religious – completely irreligious underlying sense of stillness. in fact – but I’m interested in the stranger saints and the idea of belief Extremes of register abound as, for and the faith people have and the example, shrill piccolos contrast with lengths they will go to protect it”. He sonorous, rumbling contrabassoon offers no moral judgement upon the and tuba. The string sections stories he chooses. Rather, paradox hold surprises, too; whilst snow and enigma loom large in his music, miracle omits violas and cellos, where suggestive atmospheres and and noises omits violins, St Vitus pictorial, sometimes surreally witty eschews strings altogether except ‘scenes’ are soaked in claustrophobic for six double basses which – like disquiet and lit with an exquisite, dark all Holt’s ensemble strings – are beauty. frequently divided into smaller, 5 delicate groupings. It goes without death by the Romans in 304 A.D. saying that the concerto soloists Aged just 12-14 years old, she require not just technical brilliance had supposedly refused to worship but great sonic imagination. Yet “false gods” decreed by the emperor every player in Holt’s extraordinary Diocletian. In the composer’s words, orchestral soundworld performs he presents the concerto’s seven a vital, dramatic role. Allusive and movements “as if part of a painting multi-layered, his music is amongst in which we see all the events of the most exciting and intriguing of her life and eventual martyrdom”. today. Eulalia’s story is certainly gruesome, witness to a and Holt utilises visceral musical imagery in a score replete with snow miracle (2005) subtle medieval hues. He describes From the initial, frenzied cadenza for how she was tortured: “… torn solo violin, witness to a snow miracle by iron hooks revealing her very turns on its head any conventional bones, and fl ames applied to the idea about what a concerto is. The wounds to increase her suffering. title is derived from W. G. Sebald’s She was dragged by the hair, ‘As the Snow on the Alps’, from berating her captors all the while the prose-poem, After Nature. This and threatening them with the concerns the renaissance painter terrors of the Final Judgement, to Matthias Grünewald, famous for his the place of execution where she grotesque religious panels in which was covered in hot coals. Her hair physical torment is portrayed in caught fi re and she was suffocated harrowing technicolour detail. Holt’s by the smoke. A blanket of snow subject is the Christian martyr St fell on her ashes, at which point she Eulalia of Merida, who was put to was declared a saint.” 6 The opening ‘Eulalia of Merida’ – and is, the absence of reason in the indeed the entire violin part, with its fundamentalist, unswerving faith obsessive, frantic lines off-set by held by tormented and tormentors shrieking woodwind; thumping and alike. Holt’s unfl inching aural images rasping brass; clanking percussion compel just as they repel. He seems and rippling harp and celeste – to ask: where ends and where suggests that the soloist represents begins horror and beauty; fi re and the saint herself. However, as so ice; monster and miracle? The piece often in Holt’s music, his mode of is fi nally inscrutable, as the soloist is expression might be strikingly direct, instructed to turn his or her back to but meanings or associations are the audience as it dies away. ambiguous. Who is it that bears witness? Perhaps we listeners do Commissioned by the BBC. Premiere: – but are we sure that the violinist violinist Viviane Hagner with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted does not? Does Eulalia actually by Jonathan Nott. Awarded Best expire, or is she rather transmuted? Orchestral Work at the 2006 British Holt’s movements run thus: Composer Awards. 1 Eulalia of Merida 2 the tearing, the burning a table of noises (2007) 3 fl ames become birds The title, a table of noises, contains 4 snowfall on ashes several clues as to the inspiration 5 witness behind Holt’s extraordinary 6 torments percussion concerto, and the 7 halo mischief that pervades it. In his composer’s note, Holt explains that More important than narrative “the percussionist will, for the most logic, here, is its absence; that part, be seated on a cajon (a box- 7 like instrument most often used tongue-in-cheek collective noun? in fl amenco). At other times he Holt’s score is both wittily inventive will play the xylophone and fi nally and poignant in its portrayal of Ash the glockenspiel, but all the other and aspects of his life. It is also instruments will be laid out on a gratifyingly substantial, utilising table in front of the soloist; hence startling, mainly chamber textures the title.” within a series of brief movements linked by fi ve “ghost” orchestral The music itself suggests further interludes: twists: a ‘table’ also describes a method of categorising, and 1 JUTE (a rough material used for Holt casts the work’s subject, his stuffi ng animal skins) taxidermist great uncle Ashworth, 2 ghost one as a kind of maverick scientist-cum- 3 fl y (Ash’s dog, who would fall collector. There is irony, too, in that asleep standing up, staring into the piece confounds expectations the fi re) of a percussion concerto in 4 ghost two being mainly quiet in dynamic 5 a drawer full of eyes and delicately subtle – as well as (discovered by Holt’s mother in fearsomely virtuosic. Indeed, Holt Ash’s bedroom tallboy) writes for pitched and un-pitched 6 ghost three percussion alike with great lyrical 7 Skennin’ Mary (a neighbour care and sensitivity, belying lazy with a glass eye that spun when ‘categorisations’ of percussion as she became angry) ‘noise’ as opposed to ‘music’. 8 ghost four 9 table top (everything to hand How does the orchestra stand in since Ash had a “gammy leg”) relation to this ‘table of noises’; a / ghost fi ve (for bass clarinet, 8 played simultaneously with Commissioned for Colin Currie jointly ‘table top’) by the City of Birmingham Symphony 10 under glass (Ash’s display Orchestra and the Borletti-Buitoni cabinet of stuffed animals and Trust.