Penllyn

I've been in York for a performance of my new piano piece Penllyn, based on the early nineteenth century hymn tune by David Jenkin Morgan (1752-1844).

Here is the original tune (above) and my own version of it.

It was included  in a lunchtime concert by pianist Duncan Honeybourne (see below) as the closing item in Piano Postcards: a programme of miniatures spanning 1916 to 2016 (I was providing the piece from 2016) at York’s Late Music concert series at St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel near to the Shambles. 

The concert features pieces recorded by Duncan as part of a CD project set up by composer David Power featuring a selection of piano works by British composers written over the last century, culminating in recent pieces by David and myself (keep an eye on this blog or my website for more details when the CD is about to appear). There was also an evening concert given by the excellent Late Music Ensemble ensemble conducted by composer James Whittle who organised the day of concerts; it included a splendid new piece by David in tribute to David Bowie: Bye Bye Spaceboy.

We recorded all the pieces in York last year (see the blog I wrote then for more details), but it was never going to be possible to include the series of miniatures I wrote in the concert. This is because they do things with the piano that it is only possible to do in a recorded situation - for instance, doubling melodic lines played on the keyboard simultaneously with the same notes plucked inside the instrument, or adding many different layers of sound. 

Many thanks to Duncan who gave a wonderful performance of the piece and to James for his excellent organisation of the day - if anyone is interested in seeing a copy of the new piece, do drop me an email.

Adieu to all alluring toys

Next Monday night (7 December), the music department of Cardiff University are giving a very enterprising concert of music by Welsh composers. It takes place at the University Music Department at 7pm  (details here). There is music by Andrew Wilson-Dickson, Gareth Churchill, Christopher Painter, Sarah Lianne Lewis, Max Charles Davies, John Metcalf and others, including a performance of my short cantata Adieu to All Alluring Toys. 

Some of the most fascinating discoveries in old churches and chapels are often hidden away amongst the memorial stones on the walls or lying benearth our feet. I particularly like those from the later seventeenth or eighteenth century with their lettering and designs by artisan stone-cutters, often with verses that have perhaps been written by someone local. I've often jotted down some of the more striking of these in my notebooks and when, in 2011, I was asked to write a song for a CD of contemporary British songs on the Meridian label, I raided by notebooks to find some texts that might be used. 

Adieu to all Alluring Toys is the name of a short cantata for baritone and piano that I completed in 2011, recorded by Paul Carey Jones and Ian Ryan. it consists of two songs (or arias) framing a small central recitative.The project was masterminded by composer David Power, whose wife Linda Ingham contributed the very striking cover. 

The piece takes words from three eighteenth and early nineteenth century memorial plaques found in churches in South-East Wales and Lincolnshire (those around Brecon and the Black Mountains seem to be particularly rich in such treasures). Two of the epitaphs are written to the memory of small children whilst another warns of the inevitability of our mortality. Innocent, naïve and sentimental, the words nonetheless are full of light, optimism and even humour, far removed from our more recent view of mortality. It is these qualities that the music tries to capture.

Here is the first of the texts and the one from which the piece's title comes. I found it in St Beilo, Llanfilo in Breconshire. It's in memory of Elizabeth the Daughter of Walter Vaughan, of Tredomen, Gent. She died the 31^st March 1774 Aged 10 years.

There is a brief central recitative which I took from Rhulen Church, Breconshire. Inscription: James Probert who departed this transitory life, September 17^th 1756, aged 66. Here is the church, hidden in the hills.

I found the final text in Grimsby Minster, Lincolnshire: Inscription: Under this Stone was Buried the Body of GEORGE, Infant son of Captain PETER RYE, Royal Navy, who died Dec’r 6^th 1808.

Because this is a commercial CD, the music hasn't been posted up on a website, but you can hear extracts if you go to Meridian's site, buy it online or, better still, come along next Monday. 

A Century of Piano Music

I was in York at the National Centre for Early Music earlier this week to record a new piano piece I've written for Duncan Honeybourne.

It's part of a CD project set up by composer David Power which features a selection of piano works by British composers written over the last century, culminating in recent pieces by David and myself. The other composers are Morfydd Owen, Evangeline and Leo Livens, Julius Harrison, Constance Warren, Arthur Butterworth, Christopher Headington, John Longmire, Peter Racine Fricker and Howard Skempton. All the pieces are being recorded for the first time. The National Centre for Early Music is based in a church dating back to the eleventh century church near to Fossgate. Here is Duncan in action.

And here is Duncan, David and myself listening to some playbacks along with Jez Wells who is recording and producing the CD.

My piece is based on the same idea as the film I worked on earlier this year, based around the abandoned chapel at Cippyn in Pembrokeshire, developing and carrying over some of the music for it (more details in this blog). I've written a piece which can only be realised as a recording with the piano is overdubbed and asked to do things that are not be possible live. Here I am helping Duncan play some of the internal strings with a drumstick.

Watch out for more details early next year when the CD is released.