Interview with Nick & Tony Bicât including poems by Aleksandr Pushkin Letter from Abroad Last Orders The Sun Will Shine Again Days of December Aspen Lullaby Beslan: Two Voices All musical works by Nick & Tony Bicât. There will not be an interval. Andrew Parrott Conductor Emily Van Evera Soprano Frances M Lynch Soprano James Rhoads Tenor David Jones Baritone Andy Armistead Bass -- Adam Bushell Percussion Holly Cook Flute Daniel Gea Violin Sam James Accordion Raya Kostova Piano Dave Malkin Guitar Stephen Street Double Bass Introduction The collaboration of Nick and Tony Bicât The interplay of words and music forward to bring this haunting is the theme of tonight’s performance. work to a live audience. The piece is Brothers Nick and Tony Bicât, remarkable for its elegiac poetry and composer and wordsmith respectively, instrumentation, but above all for the have collaborated on many projects dramatic juxtaposition of the widow over a number of years. We will mourning her lost daughter and the hear a range of songs and poems ‘Black Widow’ contemplating the culminating in their truly remarkable effects of her suicidal terrorism. memorial cantata for the victims and The words are important; perpetrators of the calamitous Beslan you will find in your programme School Siege of 2004. the words of all the songs, Beslan, What many will not know is that and also a translation of the Russian the Bicât family has close roots in poems of Pushkin. We are most the Caucasus, as their grandfather grateful to Irina Belaia for her choice was a Chechen. After the Russian and reading of these. Revolution he was President of Cantata Dramatica has acted as the the short-lived National Assembly promoter of this concert. We came of The North Caucasian Republic across Beslan when promoting the and leader of the diplomatic mission first live performance of Nick Bicât’s to the Paris Peace Conference in equally haunting Requiem in 2012. 1919. The republic disappeared It is a privilege to be able to bring such when the Bolsheviks took over in outstanding and unusual musical 1922. Their grandmother Natasha works to live audiences. was brought up in the very cosmopolitan city of Odessa. Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without the enthusiastic To mark these antecedents, support of our conductor, soloists, we have incorporated extracts from singers and instrumentalists, or the Odessa verses of Pushkin’s Onegin’s the access to venues as beautiful Travels, which celebrate that city, as this Georgian Church of St and the last stanza of the same poet’s George the Martyr, or the support A Prisoner of the Caucasus, that ends of our sponsors and hard work of with lines imagining a peaceful our brilliant administrative team. future for the region. Thanks to all of them! While most of the songs and music We hope that you enjoy this in the first half have been performed concert, and please bear in mind before, and Beslan has been recorded, our forthcoming performances of this is the first public performance Nick Bicât’s Perpetua in Southwark of Beslan. We are extremely grateful Cathedral on Wednesday 1 October. to Andrew Parrott, our conductor, Further information and tickets are and to sopranos Emily Van Evera available from the Cantata Dramatica and Frances M Lynch (both soloists website, www.cantatadramatica.com. on the recording) for coming Nick Pitts-Tucker Chairman, Cantata Dramatica Beslan Beslan is the third largest town in the Republic of North Ossetia- UKRAINE Alania, a federal subject of Russia Republic of North to the north of Georgia. Ossetia-Alania What became known as the Beslan Massacre began on 1 September 2004, during the family-attended ceremony Beslan that marked the beginning of the Russian school year, called Knowledge Vladikavkaz Day. Islamic separatist militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied a school in Beslan, North Ossetia RUSSIAN and held over 1,100 people hostage Black for three days with no food, water Sea FEDERATION or medical supplies—including 777 children. The militants’ main demand was recognition of the NORTH CAUCASIAN independence of Chechnya at the UN, FEDERAL DISTRICT KAZAKHSTAN and withdrawal of Russian troops from the nearby republic. The siege ended when Russian Chechen security forces stormed the school Republic after several explosions were triggered. GEORGIA All but one of the terrorists were Caspian Sea killed. Of the 334 hostages killedTURKE Y during the siege, more than half were children. Close to 200 hostages remained missing or unidentified. AZERBAIJAN Beslan: Two Voices was composed by Nick Bicât The work is scored for five solo voices accompanied by a in collaboration with his brother Tony, as a response small instrumental ensemble. The two female soloists give to this tragedy. Nick had been working with his friend a fictional voice to two women. The first is a mother taking the conductor Andrew Parrott (of Taverner Fame) to evolve her youngest daughter to her first day at school, and the a musical style without any pre-formed idea of idiom. second is one of the so-called ‘Black Widows’, whose For Beslan, Nick combined this approach with research husbands had been killed by the Russians. The female into traditional Caucasian music to find a lean modern soloists also intermittently join the rest of the singers in the style which serves the narrative. The result is a highly vocal consort, setting the opening scene and drawing the concentrated and lyrical piece, full of drama and emotion, audience into the narrative. When the school siege is over, where every note counts and the listener is relentlessly only the grieving mother is left alive: her cry goes up, drawn into the tragedy as it unfolds. ‘Give me a body to mourn’. from Кавказский A Prisoner пленник in the Caucasus И смолкнул ярый Hushed now are the furious shouts of war крик войны: All is in subjection to Russian arms Все русскому мечу подвластно. The proud sons of the Caucasus fought on. Кавказа гордые сыны, They suffered dreadful losses; Сражались, гибли вы ужасно; But nothing could save them— Но не спасла вас наша кровь, Not the carnage inflicted on us, Ни очарованные брони, Nor their fabled weaponry, Ни горы, ни лихие кони, Not their mountains or their spirited horses, Ни дикой вольности любовь! Nor their devotion to an unnamed freedom, Подобно племени Батыя, Like the Mongol hordes, Изменит прадедам Кавказ, the mountain folk of the Caucasus Забудет алчной брани глас, Will not stay true to their ancestral ways: Оставит стрелы боевые. They’ll forget the call of hungry conflict К ущельям, где гнездились вы, And put aside the arrows of war Подъедет путник без боязни, The travellers will ride without fear И возвестят о вашей казни Up to the mountain fastness where they lurk; Преданья темные молвы. And sombre tales will be told Of how their murderous raids were punished. А С Пушкин A S Pushkin я жил тогда в Одессе…... I lived then in Odessa... Я жил тогда в Одессе пыльной... Там долго ясны небеса, Там хлопотливо торг обильный I lived then in Odessa, whose endless skies Свои подъемлет паруса; Blew the cobwebs from my head Там все Европой дышит, веет, There the hustle and bustle of trade Все блещет югом и пестреет Spread its sails to the wind and the sound of Europe. Разнообразностью живой. Happy streets ring with the golden tongue of Italy Язык Италии златой Such variety! Proud Slavs strut, Frenchmen preen Звучит по улице веселой, Spaniard greets Armenian Где ходит гордый славянин, And the sweetmeat-fat-Moldavian walking by the sea Француз, испанец, армянин, Tips his hat to the Egyptian И грек, и молдаван тяжелый, The pensioner-pirate Moor Ali. И сын египетской земли, Корсар в отставке Морали. * * Everywhere rings with masons’ hammers Like smithies beating out bronze horseshoes Но уж дробит каменья молот, They set new stone into old pavement И скоро звонкой мостовой Saving the town. Покроется спасенный город, Though humid, Odessa has no water Как будто кованой броней. Could this be a problem? Should we sit and pine? Однако в сей Одессе влажной Imagine of all things to want, water! Such a bother. Еще есть недостаток важный; No, my friends, who could ask for more Чего б вы думали? - воды. Than a land the gods have blessed Потребны тяжкие труды... We have the ocean and summer sun Что ж? это небольшое горе, And who cares for water Особенно, когда вино When there’s so much smuggled wine? Без пошлины привезено. Но солнце южное, но море... A S Pushkin Чего ж вам более, друзья? А С Пушкин LETTER FROM ABROAD LAST ORDERS 1968 1975 I was in France, in those days we wrote letters. From David Hare’s play Teeth ‘n’ Smiles Royal Court Theatre. The palindromic structure of Nick’s harmonies I wrote the lyric on the train down from Birmingham, seems to echo the formality of the love-letter poem. where I was casting my TV play Glitter. I gave it to Nick and David when I arrived at the Court, where they were rehearsing. It was sung by Helen Mirren in the last act of the play. The adjectives of sadness form a square Last orders on the Titanic There are no trees Set up the fol de rol It’s very empty here Tell the band to play that number The monument before me is very hard to see Better get it in your soul They’ve turned the fountains off before they freeze Put the life boats out to sea We've only got a few The adjectives of sadness fill my spoon Let the women and children drown The taste is bitter Man we've gotta save the crew But before it’s noon I’ll have to drain them up have to drink the cup Because the ship is sinking The sign has gone they’ve painted out the