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With His Large and Varied Output, Gavin Bryars Is Not Normally Thought of As a Choral Composer

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With His Large and Varied Output, Gavin Bryars Is Not Normally Thought of As a Choral Composer With his large and varied output, Gavin Bryars is not normally thought of as a choral composer. Yet his canon holds much of interest for enterprising choirs to explore, argues David Wordsworth A subversive MARKE DOUG © conventionalist t is perhaps unlikely that many Some of the less inspired members of our Although as a composer Bryars is a composers profiled byChoir & Organ critical fraternity label Bryars as a minimal- fairly recent convert to choral music in the Ican list such a varied and diverse ist – but there is far more to him that that. conventional sense, recent years have seen collection of collaborators as Gavin He does count Steve Reich and Philip Glass a renewed interest in writing for choirs Bryars. Avant-garde director and play- among his friends and yes, one might recog- of all kinds. Born in the small Yorkshire wright Robert Wilson; choreographer nise minimalist patterns. But what makes town of Goole on 16 January 1943, Bryars Merce Cunningham; leading figures from Bryars’s music so instantly recognisable remembers that for much of his early the word of jazz such as Holly Cole and is that, like all good composers, he cheer- life he was surrounded by music for the Charlie Haden; writer Blake Morrison; fully pilfers from a wide range of influences church. His family were devout church- and film-director Atom Egoyan – names and what comes out – the broadly tonal goers and took the ‘old idea’ of a Sunday likes these crop up in Bryars’s catalogue as harmonies (with the odd eyebrow-raising very seriously – he tells how he wasn’t frequently as the Hilliard Ensemble and inflection), long melodic lines and tingling allowed to even buy an ice cream on a the Latvian Radio Choir. But for those instrumentation (with a particular love for Sunday! Although he describes himself as who know the work of Gavin Bryars or low strings and wind instruments) – sounds no longer religious in any ordinary sense, the man himself, none of this comes as like, well, Gavin Bryars and nobody else. The he still remembers the hymns, anthems any real surprise: here is someone whose Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje sums and psalms from services he regularly background is as much about visual art him up rather better: ‘The music of Gavin attended with great affection, and he and philosophy as music and whose Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, confesses a particular love for now rarely enthusiasm for the dusty corners of any full of sensuality and wit … He is one of the heard cornerstones of the repertoire, such conceivable subject inspires him to set few composers who can set slapstick against as Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn and notes on paper. primal emotion alongside each other.’ Mendelssohn’s Hear my Prayer. 52 CHOIR & ORGAN JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 www.choirandorgan.com GAVIN BRYARS Bryars’s first professional musical expe- ard choral forces. These new versions, of (1993) seems to be just that, albeit a rather riences were a world away from choral course encourage further performances unique take within the tradition. Scored music – as a jazz bass player. He left the but need a very particular approach to for soloists (a stratospheric soprano and world of jazz improvisation to work with singing: careful attention to diction, into- counter-tenor), choruses and orchestra, experimental composers John Cage in nation and balance, hardly surprising the work sets texts from the Old English America and Cornelius Cardew in the UK, taking into account their original inspira- paraphrase of the opening books of which in turn led to his first big success tion. Perhaps the most personal of these the Bible (sung by the choruses) and a in 1972 with his multi-media works The Hilliard pieces (later rescored for SATB 20th-century monologue by US writer Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus’ Blood choir) is the Cadman Requiem (1989). Sam Shepard (sung by the soloists). Not Never Failed Me Yet. Indeed, although his Written in memory of Bill Cadman, the well received by critics at its first perform- opera Medea includes extensive passages composer’s sound engineer and close ance, it has recently been revived in the of choral music, Bryars was 40 before friend who was killed in the Lockerbie air Netherlands and will be released on CD writing his first ‘official’ choral work, crash in 1988, the work takes fragments early in 2013. It is high time that this strik- On Photography (1983), which was itself of text from the Requiem Mass, but also ingly original piece was looked at again. rescued from an abandoned opera and not interweaves the Bede’s paraphrase of As for the future, Bryars plans to performed until some eleven years later. Caedman’s Creation Hymn in the original continue with a large set of pieces for The work is unusually scored for chorus, 7th-century Northumbrian. It is a touch- children’s voices and has been commis- with an accompaniment (inspired by ing memorial that is just as effective in sioned to write a large-scale work for The Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, for which its new choral guise as it is in the original Crossing, the Philadelphia choir renowned it makes an ideal concert companion) of version. Glorious Hill (1988), also origi- for their performances of new music piano and harmonium. A first real choral nally a Hilliard piece, also works effectively (see Choir & Organ, Jan/Feb 2012 issue). piece it may be – and as the composer for mixed or male voice choirs. Two pieces, Whatever the choir, be it of the highest ruefully admits having to wait so long to the result of Bryars’s work at the Hilliard professional standing, amateur or even a hear it he couldn’t learn anything from Summer School in 1997, are written for a small church choir (in 2007 Bryars wrote the experience – but On Photography mixed group of tutors and students. And a charming set of Billesdon Carols for his does have many of what have become so ended Kant’s travelling in this world own village choir) enterprising direc- recognisable Bryars fingerprints: a love is well within the capabilities of a good tors can find much in the music of Gavin of setting texts in languages other than chamber choir and sets a text by Thomas Bryars – music that is somehow much English (Italian, French, German, Latin de Quincey, described by the composer as more than the sum of its parts. and even Greek), a habit that Bryars has partly an exercise in diction; Three Poems Gavin Bryars’s music is published by Schott: only in recent years broken and the result of Cecco Angiolieri is a more demanding www.schott-music.com. www.gavinbryars.com he says of worrying about getting away proposition, written for all the small vocal from the ‘Britten/Pears’ sound, for which groups that took part in the same summer David Wordsworth is music director of the he has little sympathy; long, demand- school – 10 solo groups (effectively 49 solo Addison Singers and has held residencies at ing lines that need considerable breath voices) sing music that is, even for Bryars, the Universities of Michigan and Syracuse, control; disconcerting enharmonic shifts incredibly rich and luxuriant. and North Carolina and Michigan State that can take singers by surprise, but also More recent collaborations have Universities in the USA. He was artistic direc- a quietly ecstatic quality that makes the been with choirs in the Baltic States, tor of the ‘John Ireland in Chelsea’ festival in music hugely rewarding to sing. Not unlike in particular the Latvian Radio Choir June 2012 marking the 50th anniversary of the output of two of his closest composer and perhaps rather more unusually the the death of John Ireland. friends, Arvo Pärt (whom Bryars acknowl- Estonian National Male Choir, for whom edges as a huge influence) and Howard Bryars has written several settings of the Skempton, music which looks very simple Scottish poet Edwin Morgan. Vocal groups on the page is in fact in its own way some- ranging from Trio Mediaeval, Red Byrd thing of a challenge. and Singer Pur to the amateur chamber Again like Pärt, one of the most impor- choir The Addison Singers have premiered tant collaborations of Bryars’s creative Madrigals (there are now five books) – life has been with the Hilliard Ensemble, settings in English and Italian for many whose unique sound and musicality has different vocal combinations that echo the inspired many pieces which have gone aesthetic and manner of composers such on to enjoy a more extended life. Ever the as Monteverdi and Gesualdo. practical composer, Bryars has gone on It is perhaps hard to imagine a composer ARGREAVES to arrange – or perhaps, in the words of like Gavin Bryars making any contribu- H Bryars’s first musical another great hero, Percy Grainger, ‘dish tion to what might be called the ‘British experiences were as ONATHAN ONATHAN J a jazz bass player up’ – versions of these pieces for stand- Choral Tradition’ but The War in Heaven © www.choirandorgan.com JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 CHOIR & ORGAN 53.
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