Edges Programme May 26

Concert Programme

Notes by Rick Birley

Soprano – Abbi Temple Violin – Jennifer Curiel

Piano – Peter Oakes

Today it is the premiere of my song-cycle “Edges”, as well as an associated composition for violin and piano “Austerity”. The songs were composed over a period of nearly two years from 2004, being completed in January 2006. No.6 - “the first Day’s Night” - is based on a piece I originally composed for the “Songs of Time” in 1997. Austerity

Violin: Jennifer Curiel / Piano: Peter Oakes

“Austerity” was composed over three weeks in February / March this year. The piece was conceived as an adjunct to Edges, and is based upon a poem I wrote entitled “Weather of Her Soul” reproduced at the end of this programme. An old woman, perhaps the Madwoman of Cork herself, stares at her image in a mirror and travels over her wrinkled features through the dark centres of her own eyes and into the depths of her soul beyond, into the vastness of her inner self. Composer’s notes about Edges, read on his behalf by Dr. Richard Hall. These are illustrated by short musical extracts. EDGES

Soprano Abbi Temple / Violin: Jennifer Curiel / Piano: Peter Oakes

1. The Madwoman of Cork 2. Casting 3. Counting the Mad 4. A Birthday Poem 5. The Butterfly 6. The first Day’s Night had come… 7. Ecclesiastes 8. Noon Walk on the Asylum Lawn 9. Love’s Madness 10. Hospital for Defectives The life blood for a composer is the performance of his/her music, and an occasion such as this concert – and being present throughout the rehearsal process – gives public voice to my inner creative urges and encourages me to write more. I am a composer of often difficult and note-laden music but that is just the language I feel I need to use. The Emperor in the play Amadeus utters the immortal words “too many notes” after hearing one of Mozart’s new operas, but I think very few people would agree with his view! It is often suggested about my music – quite understandably – but I hope that every single note serves a useful purpose… On the rare occasions like today when musicians with ample technique manage to cope with the technical difficulties of my music I feel wonderfully reassured about what I do. Austerity was composed specifically for Jenni and Peter, and Edges specifically for Abbi. Without these fantastic musicians my music would remain locked in my own head! I am enormously grateful therefore to them for making such a huge effort required to perform these pieces at this level here today. We recorded “Edges” here in St Mary’s Church at the end of April. CDs are available after this concert at the back of the church – for £5.

Edges – a song cycle 1 The Madwoman of Cork To-day / Is the feast day of Saint Anne / Pray for me / I am the madwoman of Cork. Yesterday / In Castle Street/ I saw two goblins at my feet / I saw a horse without a head Carrying the dead / To the graveyard / Near Turner’s Cross. I am the madwoman of Cork / No one talks to me When I walk in the rain / The children throw stones at me / Old men persecute me / And women close their doors. When I die / Believe me / They’ll set me on fire. I am the madwoman of Cork / I have no sense. Sometimes / With an eagle in my brain / I can see a train / Crashing at the station If I told people that / They’d choke me / Then where would I be? I am the madwoman of Cork / The people hate me. When Canon Murphy died / I wept on his grave / That was twenty-five years ago. When I saw him just now / In Dunbar Street / He had clay in his teeth / He blest me. I am the madwoman of Cork / The clergy pity me. I see death / In the branches of a tree / Birth in the feathers of a bird. To see a child with one eye / Or a woman buried in ice / Is the worst thing / And cannot be imagined. I am the madwoman of Cork / My mind fills me. I should like to be young / To dress up in silk / And have nine children. I’d like to have red lips / But I’m eighty years old / I have nothing / But a small house with no windows. I am the madwoman of Cork / Go away from me. And if I die now / Don’t touch me. I want to sail in a long boat / From here to Roche’s Point / And there I will anoint / The sea / With oil of alabaster. I am the madwoman of Cork / And to-day / Is the feast day of Saint Anne. Feed me. Patrick Galvin (1930 - ) 2 Casting The waters deep, the waters dark, / Reflect the seekers, hide the sought, Whether in water or in air to drown. Between them curls the silver spark, / Barbed, baited, waiting, of a thought – Which in the world is upside down, / The fish hook or the question mark? Howard Nemerov (1920 - )

3 Counting the Mad This one was put in a jacket, / This one was sent home, / This one was given bread and meat / But would eat none, And this one cried No No No No / All day long. This one looked at the window / As though it were a wall, / This one saw things that were not there, /This one things that were, And this one cried No No No No / All day long. This one thought himself a bird, / This one a dog, / And this one thought himself a man, / An ordinary man, And cried and cried No No No No / All day long. Donald Justice (1925 - ) 4 A Birthday Poem For every year of life we light / a candle on your cake / to mark the simple sort of progress / anyone can make, and then, to test your nerve or give / a proper view of death, you’re asked to blow each light, each year, / out with your own breath. James Simmons (1933 - ) 5 The Butterfly He was a butterfly / And he had all / The words on his wings, And he said to the moth / ‘I love the light, / And I know how it burns.’ Des McHale (1958 – 1996)

6 The first Day’s Night had come… The first Day’s Night had come – / And grateful that a thing / So terrible – had been endured – / I told my Soul to sing – She said her Strings were snapt – / Her Bow – to Atoms blown – / And so to mend her – gave me work / Until another Morn – And then – a Day as huge / As Yesterdays in pairs, / Unrolled its horror in my face – / Until it blocked my eyes – My Brain – begun to laugh – / I mumbled – like a fool – / And tho’ ’tis Years ago – that Day – /My Brain keeps giggling – still. And Something’s odd – within – / That person that I was – / And this One – do not feel the same – / Could it be Madness – this? Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) 7 Ecclesiastes There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey, / Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth. There is one blasphemy: for death to pray, / For God alone knoweth the praise of death. There is one creed: ’neath no world-terror’s wing / Apples forget to grow on apple trees. There is one thing is needful – everything – / The rest is vanity of vanities. G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936)

8 Noon Walk on the Asylum Lawn The summer sun ray / shifts through a suspicious tree. though I walk through the valley of the shadow It sucks the air / and looks around for me. The grass speaks. / I hear green chanting all day. I will fear no evil, fear no evil The blades extend / and reach my way. The sky breaks. / It sags and breathes upon my face. in the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies The world is full of enemies. / There is no safe place. Anne Sexton (1928 – 1974)

9 Love’s madness Willed yet not controlled by will / I was lifted to a great height / Onto a vast and grass-tussock’d hill / Up into the yearning light. Life and I ran hand in hand in love / On endless summers days / Protected and immune up there above We happily lay together ’till dusk’s haze / Willed again; as time drew on we ran as one / Toward the edge of the unknown And plunged headlong into the dying sun / And over the abyss! And there our spirit has flown Into an ageless clime, the kiss of Spring / Gives our love in timeless bliss its fling. Rick Birley - Feb 16 1982 10 Hospital for Defectives By your unnumbered charities / A miracle disclose, / Lord of the Images, whose love, The eyelid and the rose / Takes for a language, and today Tell to me what is said / By these men in a turnip field / And their unleavened bread. For all things seem to figure out / The stirrings of your heart. / And two men pick the turnips up / And two men pull the cart; And yet between the four of them / No word is ever said / Because the yeast was not put in / Which makes the human bread. But three men stare on vacancy / And one man strokes his knees; / What is the meaning to be found /In such dark vowels as these? Lord of the Images, whose love, / The eyelid and the rose / Takes for a metaphor, today beneath the warder’s blows, / The unleavened man did not cry out / Or turn his face away; Through such men in a turnip field / What is it that you say? Thomas Blackburn (1916 – 1977)

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Weather of her Soul She peers into her glass / a toad stares back / She steers her wooden stare / through bosky grey to fields of furrowed clay shared and scored anew each uncalled-for day With roughshod care / time’s rivelled hack / reflects through her etched weatherglass She peers into her glass and sees beyond / the dullish stare stares back / from ash veneered opacity She holds the stare and starts to float / guides her ancient sonde / across the pages of her almanac to the crowded footnote / of her existential vast extensity She peers into her glass and passes through / floats through the black lights of her eyes / and humming a tuneless barcarole / drifts into the inner void The faintly azure blue / stares back in thin disguise / and brushes past the membranes of her soul / vibrates the familiar schizoid Here she sees another face / reflecting in a room of glass / whose panes touch at the darkness without Whose edges of infinity reflect in truth / the greater keenness of her space Whose focus seeks an edge on which to shout / but never sharpens its ephemeral mass / nor matures its sallow youth That wretched soul of hers / whose heart is filled with rarest art / lies wrecked on the low-tide shore / midst wrack and mortal ruin waiting for the reaper’s cart The journeyman whose stealth avers / the artless truth of life’s assassin The nevermore of evermore Rick Birley 6th March 2008 glass – mirror / bosk – thicket, or little wood / shared – ploughed [ploughshare]; also shares the image / score – notch, gash, scratch; also as in music / roughshod – provided with horse-shoes with projecting nails to afford extra grip / rivelled – wrinkled [OE] / hack – a horse, esp. one in a sorry condition. Also a gash, a notch / weatherglass – barometer / sonde – [Fr] device for obtaining information about atmospheric or weather conditions at high altitude / existential – relating to human existence / extensity – massiveness or spatial quality in sensation from which perception of extension is derived barcarole – gondolier’s song, or similar / azure – of a faint blue, sky-coloured / schizoid – one with schizophrenic personality – introversion, tending to fantasise, duality / keenness – sharpness – also as in having an acute or penetrating mind; also intense / ephemeral – short-lived - ie the mayfly whose adult life is very short – often lasting but a single day. / sallow – pale yellow [of skin] / wrack – seaweed cast ashore, stranded; also wreck; also vengeance / aver – declare to be true journeyman – a hired workman, one hired by the day; also one who is competent at his trade [no longer an apprentice] / artless – guileless, unaffected, simple; also inartistic

We are very grateful for the use of this church whose rich acoustic lends itself so well to the business of making music. In addition we are also very grateful to the Dorset Music Instruments Trust, in particular Zara Percy and John Lock, for permission to use the concert Steinway grand piano.

The Performers

Abbi Temple, Soprano Originally from Weymouth, Abbi began singing lessons locally with Christine Page, before going on study at Royal Holloway and Trinity College of Music. Supported by vocal department and choral scholarships, she studied with Hazel Wood, Robert Aldwinckle & Eugene Asti and took part in masterclasses with Michael Chance and Emma Kirkby. Abbi is now enjoying a varied freelance singing and teaching career. Equally at home on stage or on the concert platform, she sings regularly with ensembles such as the Gabrieli Consort, English Voices and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, with whom she as performed all over Europe and in the US. Abbi sings regularly as an oratorio soloist, while on the opera stage she has recently played Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for Opera Anywhere and Musetta (La Bohème) for Candlelight Opera. Previous opera roles have included Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro), Giannetta (L’Elisir d’Amore), Euridice (L’Orfeo) and Polly Peachum (The Beggar’s Opera). Plans for the coming months include Despina (Così fan Tutte) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for Candlelight Opera and Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi) for South Wessex Opera.

Jennifer Curiel, Violin Jennifer has been able to read music since she was 3 years old. This was something she initiated herself as although her family enjoyed listening to music no one had really expressed an interest in learning an instrument. At the age of 5 she embarked on her dream - to learn the violin! From taking local lessons and also playing the piano and clarinet Jennifer started at Junior Guildhall School of Music in London at the age of 8. She spent 10 happy years there before going to the Royal Academy of Music to take the Performers' Course at 18. After completing the 4 year course Jennifer was offered a job with the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation of Bermuda teaching the violin and playing in a Quartet and Orchestra. Sadly this was only to cover maternity leave and after 1 year she travelled over to the USA where she studied in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University with the Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Andres Cardenes. She completed her Masters' Degree there and returned to En gland where she embarked on her freelance career based in London. She had trials with the BBC Concert Orchestra, English National Opera and Birmingham Royal Ballet before being offered a job in the 1st violins of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. As well as playing in the BSO Jennifer is a member of the Mini BSO which visits many schools in the area working with children of all ages and abilities. She is also a member of Kokoro String Quartet which plays 20th century music and the Myriad Quartet which plays all sorts of things!

Peter Oakes, Piano After training as a Maths teacher, Peter Oakes worked in London as a double bass player. Having moved to Dorset in 1992, he has spent more and more of his time playing and teaching the piano, and conducting The Thomas Hardye Singers. This he finds to be a happy state of affairs.