Our new commission for 2022
Queen's Park Singers are proud to present our first major commission, A Musical Instrument, by our accompanist Hamish Brown. Written fo rthe unusual combination fo choir and saxophone quartet, the work sets words by Elizabet Barrett Browning. Here QPS Webmaster Glyn Jones talks to Hamish about his inspiration and his approach.GJ: What drew you to this particular poem?
HB: On a simple level, my attention was caught by the title - one that was so improbably direct to my general interests. But furthermore, it was the perfect length of text for this commission, which was up to 15 minutes. I was always going to prefer a piece built on one single narrative, rather than stitching together three or four shorter poems. And upon further meditation, the themes that Browning presents are both dark and intriguing.
GJ: When you set a poem like this to music, where do you start? Do you try singing the words to yourself to try out different melodic or rhythmic patterns, for example? Or do you start with the meaning and think how you can express that in music?
HB: The gestation of this piece was long. I had found the poem relatively early, but exactly how to articulate the spirit of it took longer. The poem seemed to present various ‘motifs’ - such as Pan, the river, etc., so in a somewhat leitmotif manner, I set about - with great trial and error! - inventing the tiny cells (perhaps one chord, or a one-bar melodic figuration) upon which the piece is built. I have always been inspired by composers like Britten who seem to build a piece with such clear economy based on the source materials, so creating the four or five basic blocks gave me a comfortable starting point.
GJ: How do you go about composing for four-part choir? Is it very different from setting words for a solo voice, for example?
HB: The principal difference, I think, is that no single choral part has to carry the entire weight of expressing the text - the ‘hocketing’ technique that I use over ‘The limpid water / turbidly ran’ is one example of breaking up the voices. Also, there is an inherent harmonic textural aspect of four-part amassed voices that itself contributes to the expression, which in an art song has to be entirely taken up by the piano instead. I guess the storytelling rhythm has to be generally more linear if it is one solo voice, unlike a choir where other compositional devices become available.
GJ: Why a saxophone quartet?
HB: I have always been interested in unusual pairings, and despite being a piano accompanist myself, the sonorities of so many other instruments fascinate me. Saxophones are very versatile, and within the saxophone player community there are many already-established quartet units. The one that will be performing with us is one such unit, so instead of needing to unite musical strangers, I predicted I would be likely to find a fine synergy and fluidity between four saxophonists.
