PROGRAMME NOTES
Thursday Lunchtimes: A Tribute to Lucy Hale
Lucy Hale:
Because time will not run backwards (2014)
Amy Gray, Charlie Saunders, Thomas Bain, Xuanhan Wang percussion
Unreal City (2016)
Elena Orsi, Pia Bomby violins
Hannah Borlase viola
Kara Taylor cello
Interrupted (2016)
Nika Novak, Ravi Nathwani, Tom Dale, Christopher Godhard guitars
Zeta (2018)
Matthew Jones, Sinead Walsh, Lok-Yin Hui, Jack Belcher flutes
In The Wind (2017)
Matthew Jones flute
Ben Jarvis trumpet
Elena Orsi violin
Hannah Borlase viola
Kara Taylor cello
Four Folk Tunes (2018)
Elena Orsi, Pia Bomby violins
Hannah Borlase viola
Kara Taylor cello
Because time will not go backwards for percussion quartet (2014)
My first step towards writing because time will not go backwards was to choose the instruments. I had decided to restrict myself to fairly limited pitch material so chose my tuned instruments – tubular bells and crotales – for their colour as opposed to their melodic capabilities. I chose side drums for their rhythmic and dynamic capabilities and temple blocks to provide a clock-like effect, for instance at bars 12 – 21. I considered the possibility of using a bicycle but decided to use a wheelchair instead because, in a live performance situation, a wheelchair would be unusual and therefore striking visually. I also knew I had easy access to a disused one from my past and, having explored the variety of sounds that could be made using one, decided it was equally musically viable.
The title is a quote from a poem by Wendy Cope called A Nursery Rhyme (as it might have been written by T.S. Elliot). The sections of the piece never repeat in exactly the same way, like moments can never be relived the same way twice. This piece has a rough ‘ABA1B1’ structure. Sections A and A1 last from bar 1 – 11 and bar 46 – 83 respectively and are characterised by generally loud dynamics, less delicate use of the tuned instruments and a sense of rhythmic urgency. Sections B and B1 run from bar 12 – 45 and bar 84 to the end. They are characterised by generally quieter dynamics, more atmospheric, coloristic writing and the clock-like rhythm in the temple blocks and side drums.
Note by Lucy Hale.
Unreal City for string quartet (2016)
‘Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge’
T. S. Eliot – The Waste Land
Interrupted for guitar quartet (2016)
This piece was written in response to Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words Op 19 No 1. The accompaniment from Mendelssohn’s work inspired the main melodic material throughout the beginning of this piece. The consistency of Mendelssohn’s accompaniment also inspired the use of repeating accompanying rhythms in this piece. The flow of the melodic material is consistently interrupted by the repeating note patterns which accompany it, as well as by chords and rests.
Gradually, the repeating rhythms which make up the melody and accompaniment at the beginning of the piece give way to less regular material which is more unstable. This new material is alternately delicate and aggressive and all the while it is still repeatedly interrupted by both chords and rests. It is not until the piece’s final bars that the interruptions cease and the melodic material, which has become abrasive and rhythmically unstable, is heard from all four guitars simultaneously, free from interruptions by rests or accompanying material.
Interrupted was premiered on March 4th 2016 in the Royal Northern College of Music
Studio Theatre by Sam Rodwell, Donald Candy, Owen Bunting and Bradley Johnson.
Note by Lucy Hale.
Zeta for flute quartet (2018)
Commissioned for The Music of the Primes (part of Manchester Science Festival 2018), Zeta was inspired by the mathematical concept of the ‘zeta landscape’. In mathematics, feeding imaginary numbers into a function produces a graph that resembles a landscape. The zeta landscape is produced by feeding imaginary numbers into the zeta function and predicts which numbers will be prime numbers and which will not, though whether it does so accurately indefinitely is as yet unproven.
Zeta is in part a musical depiction of images of the zeta landscape, and in part a story of somebody finding themselves literally inside the landscape and having the opportunity to explore it.
Note by Lucy Hale.
In the Wind for flute, trumpet, violin, viola and cello (2017)
used the W B Yeats poem To a Child Dancing in the Wind as a sort of ‘springboard’ for my piece, just because I came across it whilst looking for a way to start and its themes really resonated with me. However, I never wanted the music to slavishly follow the poem, so if there were times when I felt the music demanded a departure from the text, I went with what I felt the music wanted.
I found the poem I used as a springboard first, then selected the instruments I was going to use with that poem in mind. I then developed a rough plan of the structure of the piece, the roles of the different instruments and the sound world I was trying to create before I started work on it. I tried to imagine the music in my head as much as possible, rather than relying on Sibelius’ playback feature, because the playback is unrealistic and is also incapable of producing some of the techniques I wanted.
Note by Lucy Hale.
In the Wind was a Drake Music commission, in partnership with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was premiered as part of Drake Music Resonate at the Institute for Contemporary Arts, London on the 17th of March 2017.
Four Folk Tunes for string quartet (2018)
There is a story to this piece. Lu wrote it and had it performed and recorded for me as a present for my 60th birthday. Her dad and I backpacked round the world before our two daughters were born. We were on a shoestring, so Christmas had to be minimal. By fluke we gave each other the same cassette: Van Morrison and the Chieftains Irish Heartbeat. It went on to become the soundtrack to the girls’ childhoods, and was often on in the car and at home. When Lu presented me with this arrangement, I was chuffed to bits.
Note by Nicola Hale.
A Tribute to Lucy Hale (6pm)
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Lucy Hale:
The Trojan Women (2020)
i. Hebuca
ii. Cassandra
iii. Andromache
iv. Polyxena
Hoda Jahanpour, Nathan Jackson-Turner cellos
Knitting History (2016)
Leila Chrisp voice
Angela Shao percussion
Little Did I Know Then (2016)
Nika Novak guitar
Frost and Roots (2017)
Zoe MacNamee harp
Thanks for stopping. Some of them round here are dodge. (2018)
James Holt baritone
Ethan Gillespie piano
Alter Egos (2015)
Nathan Holroyd saxophone
Programme notes:
The Trojan Women for solo cello (2020)
The Trojan Women was originally titled Warnings, Falling On Ears That Refused To Hear. It originally consisted of three movements; movements 1,2 and 4 of what is now The Trojan Women. Movement 3 was newly composed for a revised suite that’s now called The Trojan Women.
The piece explores the frustration of trying to enact change in a society which is often hostile to such change. The work consists of three miniatures, reflecting the pain and anger of the activist who is unable to make others listen to their arguments, the tirelessness of individuals such as Alf Morris who challenge those around them to change, and the danger that we have failed to learn from his, and others’ work and are thus ‘sliding backwards’ in those areas where they had sought to improve people’s lives.
Note by Lucy Hale.
Knitting History for female voice and percussion (2016)
Words by Bernadette Cullen.
It clicks,
the clack
into pattern insistent rhythm,
placing mother
where she’s from,
Handed down from,
She is the click
my mother,
she is the clack,
the rhythm,
the pattern.
Our pattern,
secret detail. From
her rhythm
to my, click-click-clack
Mother’s mother
to dead mother.
Old patterns
where I clack
my from
’till I click
with rhythm.
Holy rhythm,
our mothers
slip-one clicked
in Patons’
2 ply, from
first clack
clack.
Warm rhythm
bone knits, from
Mother’s
patterns
click
Knitting History was premiered on 25 April 2016 by Rachel Abbott and Aidan Marsden.
Little Did I Know Then for solo guitar (2016)
Little Did I Know Then is a calm and reflective work for solo guitar. The intention of the work was to explore the guitar’s resonant qualities. The piece is based on four main types of material; employing percussive techniques, chordal figures and two different melodic ideas. These are slowly developed and juxtaposed against each other throughout the work, though there is a general trajectory from more prominent percussive and melodic writing towards something more chordal. By the end of the work the melodic writing and use of percussion techniques is abandoned and the chords are all that remain. The piece’s reflective nature gave rise to the title, Little Did I Know Then, evoking the idea of reflection upon, and nostalgia for, a time of freedom from the burden of unpleasant knowledge and understanding. Similarly, the exploration of the guitar’s resonant qualities is intended to create a sense of distance and echoes, as if the music is being heard from that past time of freedom. The work’s brief louder section is reflective of frustration surrounding the impossibility of truly returning to the remembered state of freedom and the necessity of now living with the unwanted knowledge, before the quieter closing passage signifies acceptance of the present.
Note by Lucy Hale
Frost and Roots for solo harp (2017)
Frost and Roots attempts to demonstrate aspects of the harp which are rarely exploited. It is concerned with exploring the extremes of the harp’s range and is comprised of two main ideas. Deep and elemental chords represent the titular roots and are contrasted with high, cold melodic writing which portrays the frost.
Note by Lucy Hale.
This piece was commissioned for the RNCM Paul Patterson Focus and premiered by Alice Roberts on 9 June 2017 in the RNCM’s Carole Nash Recital Room, where it is being performed here again today.
Thanks for stopping. Some of them round here are dodge. for baritone and piano (2018)
This work depicts a conversation between Jasmine (the baritone), and an unnamed stranger to whom she is speaking (the piano). It was premiered at the RNCM in April 2018 by Patrick Relph and Brian Low. There is bracketed text above the piano part indicating the stranger’s half of the conversation. It is not intended to be spoken, but is included as a ‘performance direction’ for the pianist.
Note by Lucy Hale.
Words by Andy Owen Cook
‘Scuse
How d’you get to the concrete convention?
You think there’d be a sign.
I’ve been up and up and down New Street,
I’ve a talk at three!
The address is here
In one of my portals
Do you know James?
James hates me.
I had an accident
At twenny seventeen,
I thought that I was at the blood bank:
slashed my wrists with a plastic knife
Said, ‘Now’s your chance!’
Maybe James banned me.
Ha ha he ha ha ha ha ha.
I am laughing at something I thought of,
Not what you said.
Whassthat? You’ve gotta speak
up. I’m tired. The voices get louder
when I’m tired. The trick’s to take
each day like that lad,
“I want one more, please thanks sir”.
Yes, it’s nice to meet you.
I’m Jasmine.
I built a bridge that joins eight towns,
They’re tryin’ to knock my octopus down.
That’s why the talk’s a vigil, see
At the concrete convention, at three.
Alter Egos for saxophone and electronics (2015)
The intention for this piece was for it to sound like an argument between the live saxophone and the electronic track, the material for which is made up of pre-recorded fragments and effects played on the saxophone. The piece follows a rough arch shape with a generally calm opening until around bar 35 where energy begins to build before peaking between bars 52 and 74. This section is characterised by fast material at the extremities of the saxophone’s range alongside a much thicker texture in the electronic part. From bar 75 the piece begins to calm down with gradually decreasing use of electronics and less conflict between the two parts. By bar 107, the electronics are no longer used as the live part has ‘won the argument’.
Note by Lucy Hale.
RNCM Brand New Orchestra (7.30pm)
Daniel Lau R.O.O.T.
Chris Cook Dragonfly Vignette
Alice Brookes Dissolve
Lucy Hale Against the Tide
Eve Vickers Delta Relicta
Adam Webster Vision
Dominic Wills/Vladimir Nabakov I was the Shadow
Matthew Martin Façade
Elizabeth Vergara Gallego, Leon Frantzen, Ann Miller conductors
Lucy Hale - Against the Tide
This piece has a linear structure, progressively gaining energy and momentum until a final climax at the end. The violins have an ostinato which gets incrementally higher in pitch and eventually changes to double bowing before the end. All the pitched material that is not derived from this ostinato is based on 6 basic ideas. These ideas are the quintuplets first seen at bar 8, the sustained chords in the trombones, cellos and double basses first seen at figure 1, the melodic fragment first seen at bar 30 – 32 in the clarinets, trumpets, flutes and bassoons, the semiquaver and triplet motif first seen at figure 5 in the clarinets, the fanfare like material in the trumpets and trombones first seen from bar 63 and the motif first seen from bar 66 in the bass trombone, tuba and double basses. These ideas are repeated in different combinations and varied using techniques such as transposition, inversion and changes of instrumentation.
Note by Lucy Hale.
