A Playlist: Better Days Ahead
When I posted the second of my ‘Covid-19 Playlists’ it was still quite early days in the lockdown and I, like many other people, was filled with a certain sense of optimism about what the future might bring. We were able to see that under lockdown, the environment was recovering: the rivers were clearer and fish were thriving, the air was cleaner, the sky was blue and the birds were singing louder than we could remember. Maybe it was just the lack of background traffic noise, but it was in many ways a magical time. Little did we know then just what was ahead of us, in the short term of the lockdown, but I think very few of us then realised just how difficult it would prove to be to recover what we had thought of as ‘normal’.
In those early weeks, I was even persuaded that the Government knew what it had to do. There was a clear sense of a ‘coming-together’ and a renewal of a belief that we could overcome and come out stronger and better. Under those no doubt naive impressions, I chose for my second playlist a group of pieces that I felt belonged in that upbeat atmosphere. Surge Aquilo is the last of my Four Latin Motets, and the text urges the winds to blow through the gardens and to make them fruitful. This performance was by the Charter Choir of Homerton College in the Frauenkirche, Munich, during its summer tour of 2017. Noche Oscura also has a religious text, this time the poem by St. John of the Cross which evokes the union of the soul with God, but in terms that are almost those of an erotic encounter. The ensemble used here is soprano, flute, clarinet, guitar, viola and cello, and the performance is by Margaret Field with Gemini, conducted by Peter Wiegold. The large orchestral piece called Nightcycle was inspired by Hermann Hesse’s poem ‘Beim Schlafengehen’ (Going to Sleep) which was set by Richard Strauss as one of his Four Last Songs. It charts the course of a night from sunset to sunrise, performed here by the Symphony Orchestra of RTE in Dublin.
For the Far Journey is another vocal work for soprano with a small ensemble, this time of flute, clarinet, violin, cello and harpsichord. The texts are from an ancient Chinese book entitled The Secret of the Golden Flower; this too is performed by Margaret Field and Gemini. The piece is dedicated to my daughter Caroline, born on a Thursday (and Thursday’s child has far to go). The same Chinese book also inspired the work for solo alto flute The Golden Flower which is performed in the playlist by Nancy Ruffer. Where Are You Now? is something of a novelty in my output: it was co-written with a former Homerton student and was submitted as an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in this recording, made in a professional studio by a group also made of then current students (with at least one member of staff). Needless to say, we didn’t win Eurovision, but it was fun to do.
The Homerton Charter Choir, conducted by Dr Daniel Trocmé-Latter, sing Evensong at St John the Evangelist, Hills Road
Ave Regina is a beautiful motet setting of this liturgical text by Michael Haydn, Franz Joseph’s younger brother and a good friend of Mozart’s. In fact, Mozart’s Symphony no. 37 (which doesn’t actually exist) is a slow introduction written by Wolfgang Amadeus to preface a symphony actually by his friend Michael Haydn. The motet is here sung by the BBC Singers conducted by Simon Joly, as part of a Composer’s Choice programme I curated for Radio 3. This playlist is concluded with a setting of the Magnificat which I made last year especially for the Charter Choir. This performance was part of the Evensong over in St. John the Evangelist, Hills Road, on 18 February this year, conducted by Douglas Coombes (as Daniel was on paternity leave). The photograph that appears on this playlist is the view from the clifftop church at Verangeville in Normandy, looking across the bay to Dieppe.
