FOUR SEASONS: THE MUSIC
An integral feature of the Four Seasons sculpture project was the performance of specially commissioned musical works. Keith collaborated with each of the sculptors to devise a specific composition to be performed in the woodland setting at each sculpture opening. The Four Seasons in Woodland concert performed in the Caedmon Hall, Gateshead to mark the end of the project, was a reprisal of the four pieces of music based around a performance of a new 'oratorio' by Keith Morris. This consisted of settings of specially commissioned lyrics and poetry from members of Gateshead and Blaydon Prime Time writer's groups and by the then Northern Arts Literary Fellow W.N. Herbert. It also incorporated the music written for the previews of the sculptures. The performance was staged with a backdrop of slides from the Four Seasons sculptures. Here's Keith's commentary on the music: |
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All the music around these works was made by young people in Kibblesworth, with me in enabling mode, with the intention that recordings of the music would be placed in the Time Capsule which Maurice O'Connell buried in Gardiner Square. I worked at the youth club, and in the Primary School, with teachers Richard Pepper and Dorothy Hall. Youth club music mostly took the form of rap-style using a sequencer and synthesisers detailing how young people felt about their village, mostly critical in tone, but with a strong emphasis on identity. In the junior school class the songs concentrated on how people felt about their lives, school and the environment, and addressed direct questions to the future and in the infant class on who the children were and where they lived. Songs were performed live by some of the schoolchildren at the burial of the capsule, and the recordings of the youth club songs were played at the reception in the club. Music for this season is a collage of sound generated by the work itself -- sounds of Graciela carving the stone, of her workshop in the local school, of the Edinburgh foundry, making the base structure, schoolchildren on a site visit, the sound of cows in a field nearby, the JCB digging the hole for the base, aircraft overhead, the road. . .and a sung setting of the poem fragment which appears around the metal ring, all layered together using multitrack recording, and featuring a recording of the rasping call of partridges. There are several 'mixes', some featuring machines, some without singing, some with instruments and at the event four tape recorders in concealed locations played endless loops of these. Laurent Reynès' blue Bridge in Washingwell Woods was celebrated in this piece for five wind players (trumpets, saxes, trombone) and four percussionists (samba-school style). The piece is in two parts, and makes play of the shape of the sculpture, like a letter W, so generating rhythms of '3 on 2' and a melodic shape high-low-high-low-high. It is meant to have a slightly sinister character at first, giving way to a more 'upward-looking' feeling, which is how I responded to the bridge - as you approach it appears threatening, and as you walk through your attention is directed up through the structure to the sky. The band played from opposite sides of the stream, unannounced and hidden from view. This was the most formal of the compositions and performances, reflecting the formality of the piece and its setting. The short structure is in five sections, and refers to a Japanese scale-form (stone-garden) and Fado-form (for elegance) from Alberto's native Portugal. It is scored for soprano saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, two flugelhorns, two trombones, tuba and percussion (timpani/marimba). |
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