Morten Riis: Composition of/from/to Compositions

I   nvention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void(), but out of chaos. The objects and materials must, in the first place, be afforded. The constructor method is inevitably more complex than the destructor method.”
  —  Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1831.

T he pieces on this Silesian String Quartet recording are fascinating, all of them. But I am especially intrigued by the Morten Riis compositions entitled getString(), fromString(), useString(), toString(), and quitString().

R eviews published to-date have focused on the merits of the conventional string quartets. The attention that has been given to Morten Riis’s contribution to the recording has been backhanded—relegating it to the status of sonic ‘glue’ or filler between the larger pieces, or describing it as an ‘electronic remix’ of segments of the other tracks, as if Riis were functioning with no more or less forethought and composerly skill than a DJ in a club.

I t is true, the series of short pieces by Morten Riis do leverage sonic materials from the other tracks, and it is true that Riis’s pieces are a ‘mash-up’ or collocation of those materials.

M oreover, it is true that the pieces do function as an effective ‘glue’ adhering the adjacent string quartets to each other—believably, memorably—forming graceful bridges between them, smoothing textural and timbral differences, and so on.

S till further, it is true that Riis’s pieces may be ideally situated here, intercalated as they are between these other string quartets. If you heard two of the other string quartets performed back-to-back in a live concert, you would be grateful if the corresponding Riis piece were interposed seamlessly between the quartets. It just feels right.

B ut when I cue-up these 5 pieces on their own, I realize how much I like them in their own right, just by themselves. Riis’s digital processing augments the scope of color, contrast, tonal effects and varying dynamics—the four instruments producing a homogeneous timbre, even with their use of ‘extended’ techniques—these are now commented upon by what amounts to an omniscient narrator.

I   n a jam cake or a cheesecake, a single bite gives us the entire essence of the cake. You’ve got to get some icing on the fork too, though, with the former, and some crust for the latter), whereas I’d have to spend time with Bach or Led Zeppelin—to the extent of a movement, in the case of a suite or concerto (arguably) or the whole of the Goldbergs; I can’t stand Pandora or other streaming playlist media that randomly jump from Minor Threat, to Death Cab for Cutie, to Haydn with inadequate value/stylistic judgement and inadequate recognition of higher-level semantics—between movements in a sonata, for example, or between adjacent tracks in a playlist. The MIR representations are flawed, no matter whether you dress them up in ‘Music Genome’ or other marketese. How can you listen to just the third movement of Brahms’s quintet, Op. 111, and not feel a void from not hearing the first and second movements and the fourth? It just isn’t done. The third movement isn’t an encore bon bon, for Pete’s sake.”
  — Robert Kirzinger, Boston Symphony Orchestra, 2007.

D o L-system algorithms and cellular automata underlie what Riis has done here? Recursive application of a set of substitution rules to an initial string, interpreting the resulting rewritten string as structural elements of an ‘organism’; substitution rules determining how each symbol in the current generation should be replaced—is that why he chose these titles for these pieces? (Gary Lee Nelson ‘Summer Song for solo flute’ used L-system algorithms as a compositional tool.)

T hese are not mere ‘bridges’ or ‘interludes’ between the quartets. They are not ‘refrains’ or quasi-reprises or recapitulations or filler.

T he series of Riis pieces builds inexorably, and the quitString() coda arrives with great drama and power. The human-textured denouement resolves finally to a homophonic sinewave inert carrier-signal and cosmic stillness.

A t the end, the feeling is that Riis has conceived the whole entertainment—this whole assemblage of quartets and interstitial C++ like digitally-processed material—in one breath.

E ach quartet exhibits well-nigh perfect balance of momentum and heft. Each is trenchant but has playful elements that make the music work.

S ome conductors seem to regard the spaces between larger works as a perfunctory sort of ‘whitespace’—an interlude. Not Riis. He lavishes the same attention on the interstices that he lavishes on everything else. He doesn’t need to relax too much in order to give us a measure of respite. In some of the insterstitial pieces we get also an air of irony, a feeling we are being given the other side of one coin.

I n summary, this is one of the most extraordinary and innovative assemblies of new music to come down the pike, one that will amply reward your listening.

I n my day-job I am a software developer. I love designing things and seeing them work. I love the tools I use to design and build things. I love designing tools to design and build things. All of my friends accept this about me. So, with that preamble, I can say that the other thing I like about Riis’s pieces are their titles—their explicit homage to C++ object-oriented programming constructors as sources of inspiration and/or explanation for the (meta-)composing process. In a mass-culture that feels progressively more and more dumbed-down and hostile toward knowledge and people who devote their lives to knowing things, here is a work that bears cheerfully geekish titles and enthusiastically brings forth techno compositions that are amenable to techno enjoyment and algorithmic music theoretic analysis. It is as though Riis were speaking to me and to others of my ilk and saying Babbitt-esquely, “I care if you listen! I care if you listen!”


M orten Riis (born 1980) often employs a kind deconstruction of the musical material, aiming to create an expression where diverse genre typical elements are combined and contrasted in an organic ‘liquid’ expression. Riis often collaborates with classical musicians, in order to achieve music a more live, extemporaneous expression. Conversely, he also works a lot with ambient, digitally-recorded sounds processed as little as possible, which he says imparts a natural non-human spontaneity to the musical expression. An expression which, in spite of the through-composed structures reflects organic and flowing gestures, inanimate or otherwise.



    [50-sec clip, Silesian String Quartet, Morten Riis, ‘toString()’; (track 8), 2011, 1.6MB MP3]

• Silesian String Quartet website
  
• Silesian String Quartet. getString. (dacapo, 2009.)
  
• Morten Riis website
  
• Morten Riis page at dacapo
  
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• Lartillot O. Automated motivic analysis of Brahms’ String Quartet based on multidimensional closed pattern mining. Intl Workshop on Computational Music Analysis, Paris, 2008.
  
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• Tenkanen A. Measuring tonal articulations in compositions, MaMuX Computational Analysis. IRCAM Special Session, Paris, 05-APR-2008.
  
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• Warren H. Hacker's Delight. Addison-Wesley, 2002.
  
• Winter M. On James Tenney’s ‘Arbor Vitae for String Quartet’. Contemp Music Rev 2008; 27:121–50.
  
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• Max/MSP/Jitter

T    he unprecedented divergence between contemporary serious music and its listeners, on the one hand, and traditional music and its following, on the other, is not accidental and—most probably—not transitory. Rather, it is a result of a half-century of revolution in musical thought, a revolution whose nature and consequences can be compared only with, and in many respects are closely analogous to, those of the mid-nineteenth-century evolution in theoretical physics... Why refuse to recognize the possibility that contemporary music has reached a stage long since attained by other forms of activity? The time has long since passed when the normally well-educated person without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields... Granting to music the position accorded other arts and sciences promises the sole substantial means of survival for the music I have been describing. Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed.”
  — Milton Babbitt (1916-2011), ‘Who Cares if You Listen?’, High Fidelity, FEB-1958.

Parker Quartet: Microludes, Cloud Computing, and Imagination-as-a-Service (IaaS)

S ome of the Microludes use simple dramatic devices such as long sustained notes, while others, such as the 10th, represent a terrifying tangle of string techniques. As there are moments of terror, so are there disturbing breaths of tragic lyricism and even a hint of gallows humor as suggested in the ninth. The total effect, however, is tragic desperation even if we cannot clearly define its source.”
  —  Lucy Miller Murray.

In China the short-short is called a ‘Smoke-Long’ story [the time it takes to smoke a cigarette].”
  —  Shouhua Qi.

O  ne-page fiction should hang in the air of the mind like an image made of smoke.”
  —  Jayne Anne Phillips.

T he Parker Quartet’s performance last night in the UMKC Conservatory - Friends of Chamber Music Alliance Series was superb, their cohesiveness and intensity most impressive. The unusual program showcased a sort of vivid storytelling through music, a collectivistic mode of expression at which the Parker excels. You Can’t See Dogs on the Radio, as they say, but you have no doubt that they are there, that the dogs in the story are real live dogs. The Parker Quartet plays with imagination and realism that tops the most realistic video game or interactive fiction.

• Daniel Chong, violin
  
• Karen Kim, violin
  
• Jessica Bodner, viola
  
• Kee-Hyun Kim, cello

• Dvořák — Cypresses, B.152 (I know that on my love; Death reigns; Thou only, dear one; Nature lies peaceful)
  
• Kurtág — Twelve Microludes, Op. 13, ‘Hommage a András Mihály’
  
• Hindemith — Quartet No. 3, Op. 22 (Fugato; Schenlle achtel; Ruhige viertel; Mässig schnelle; Rondo)
  
• Mendelssohn — Quartet in E Minor, Op.44, No. 2 (Allegro assai appassionato; Scherzo; Andante; Presto agitato)

K urtág’s ‘12 Mikrolúdium Vonósné-Gyesre’ Op. 13 were composed in 1977–1978, commissioned by the Witten Festival, and were given their world premiere in Witten on 21-APR-1978 by the Éder Quartet. Each microlude is a “micro fiction”, phenomenally brief, the longest of them being 130 seconds and the shortest a mere 17 seconds. The emotional impact of each nanostory both is tremendous, and the impact of the concatenation of them even more so.

I n her pre-performance remarks, violinist Karen Kim encouraged the audience to consider these vignettes as similar to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, each volume containing 24 preludes and fugues, chromatically organized in all the major and minor keys. Kurtág’s Twelve Microludes feature each key in ascending half-steps beginning with C.

P ieces so short as these carry tremendous risk. In micro fiction, if you are coercing concision, you run the risk that you will be overpowering or cruel or clichéd, as in Hemingway’s famous six-word story, ‘For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.’ Plot and character development and meaning are eroded if the form is too severely truncated/compressed. The information-carrying capacity of the available bytes is too small; it is like lossy jpegs—hard to be sure of what scenes and meanings are depicted in the bits of blurry evidence.


B ut in the Kurtág we get rich and spontaneous observations of people in as little as 17 seconds; we get both their superficial expressions and their deep inner pathologies. What we experience in Parker Quartet’s performance—what is especially distinctive about it—is the crystal-clear, unambiguous consistency of their quartetly “we,” regardless of individualistic feelings, emotions, or extrinsic thoughts the quartet members may be having. We are, at this moment, all the same, they seem to say: an assemblage of 4 persons, creating one singularity, one reality. “See it? It floats above us, about 1 meter above our heads, in the column of air between our music stands.”

A nd we in the audience eagerly attach ourselves to the intangible forms—the images and fleetingly accepted ideas, which become our “anchors” in this plane of reality. Over the ensuing seconds, those fixations and attachments become the “bars” that cage us and constrain our understanding as well as entrance us. We remain in this plane; we attach ourselves to this plane; we go with the Parkers’ flow.


T he colors and shapes of our emotions within each piece: short-short stories, slices of life. As such, we narrow the time frame and geographical location of each piece. Kurtag’s ’12 Microludes’ is playful—10 minutes of experimentation and exploration of limits. The four voices pass contrariwise—languid sustained notes, accelerating to disorienting tangles. We listeners are not given much of any anchor to hang onto or point-of-reference to maintain our bearings. These invisible dogs are wearing collars and leashes; the Parkers are showing them to us; we pet them. We readers/listeners are empowered to ascribe whatever personalized significance we wish. Interactive fiction!

T he fifth movement is maybe the most fictional one—folk melodies—some in foreground; others backgrounded—people passing each other, all of them are walking their braces of invisible dogs now, bumping into each other, greeting each other. “See it? At the end of this leash? My dog likes to eat nuts, cashews mostly. And that one likes cheese and bacon.”


S peaking of which, the Dvořák ‘Cypresses’ are micro fictions, too, but they are more programmatic or cashew-representational than the Kurtág ‘Microludes’. Kurtág is full of post-structuralist rhetorics ... a ‘metanoia’, a beyond-knowing or about-knowing-and-the-limits-of-knowing, an epistemology of surprise and doubt. Have a look at Jay David Bolter’s chapter in Philip Cohen’s multi-author edited volume (link below) if you are interested in these cashew-ey lit-theory things...

T he music encodes a compiled program—it has a set of initializations; procedural logic and flow-of-control; conditions; contingent outputs—I mean a set of software design patterns and objects and behaviors, whether perceived by us users as tendencies, rules, methods, or procedures. For this reason the formation of an implied code is a normal (and largely unconscious) process for any of us interactors, regardless of our level of technical experience. To possess an “implied code” doesn’t require that we interactors be skilled programmers with an aptitude for conceiving syntax in the compiled language or an aptitude for imagining new data structures.

I n fact, the presence or absence of such imaginings is beside the point. We are... we are cloud-based ‘Imagination-as-a-Service’ (IaaS) agents.


S ometimes our initial notions turn out to be wrong. Our “implied code” contains errors, and we discover that something crucial has changed after we receive what feels like a pop-up error message. Our mental model gets revised.

I nteractive fictions like these embody a sort of command-line-interpreter CLI user-interface, a site of negotiation between the composer, the performers, and us interactors/listeners: our imaginations contain the “objects” and procedural “methods” code for simulation and animation. The composer emits instructions. We cannot help but receive them, but the instructions may or may not be honored by the “implied code” of our listeners’/interactors’ conceptions.


I nteractive fiction is not a painting or photograph containing a command-line prompt or a transcript of a command-line and a new command-line prompt staring at us, nor is it a story describing a series of input command-lines and command-line prompts. It is not Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’ nor Stephenson’s ‘Cryptonomicon’. Nor is it a movie scene replaying a command-line interaction, like ‘The Matrix’.

W e interactors are processes in Time, our implied codes contributing to a ‘coming-into-understanding’ system-services ‘stack’. We interactors progress in learning to interact, paralleled by the progress of the protagonists within each Microlude, protagonists who likewise struggle to understand something within the reality of the story, dogs and all. Implied code mallocs an epiphany—the climax—which gives way to the conclusion: the character understands the world in the moment that we listeners understand the code, and at that moment the work ends, and then dealloc/free() and process-rundown.

S o “implied code” in Kurtag is neither a set of instructions nor a transcript of past interactions. The implied code and objects that are instantiated in the minds of us interactors are a reflection of the source code, byte code, or musical manuscript they stand in relation to, but the result is a rendering into a set of an abstractly conceived network of opportunities, allowances, and prohibitions. At the command-line, whose input mode encourages experimentation and ad hoc going-with-the-flow, these prohibitions such as error messages affect our subsequent implied code.

O ur intertwined aesthetic and technical developments can be cast in narrative theory (Iser’s gaps, and ‘fabula / sjuzet’ distinction), in game-theoretic [micro—] ‘ludology’ (player apprehension of rules, evaluation of strategic advancement), and in filmic representations (subjective POV, time-loops). I add more links for your interest below...

I n short, I was blown away by the Parker Quartet’s captivating imagery and flawless technique. The unusual repertoire in last night’s ‘microfic’ program is the epitome of chamber music ensembles’ effectively appealing to broader audiences. And for beautiful art in such a program to end in our making some discoveries, as fictive energy accumulated around the gaps, the ‘unknowns’ in the mind between the ‘knowns’, seems fitting: total success. The Parkers’ invisible dogs were members of the cloud-based potentialDogs class until, in a sudden beautiful and memorable synaptic arc, the connection was made: closure. IaaS gave us visible realDog instances, while the music lasted.


F ounded in 2002, the Parker Quartet was in 2009 awarded CMA’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award which honors rising young string quartets. Currently, the Parker is in its second season as the Quartet-in-Residence with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and in 2010 they were the first-ever Artists-in-Residence with Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media.

• Parker Quartet website
  
• Kurtág page at Wikipedia
  
• Dvořák page at Wikipedia
  
• Dvořák website
  
• Kurtág page at Boosey & Hawkes
  
• Microludes score at Boosey & Hawkes
  
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• Cohen P, ed. Texts and Textuality: Textual Instability, Theory, and Interpretation. Wellesley, 1997.
  
• Crawford C. Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling. NewRiders, 2004.
  
• Goulish M. 39 Microlectures: In Proximity of Performance. Routledge, 2000.
  
• Grmela S. Recall and repetition in some works by Kurtág. Studia Musicolog 2002:43:371-81.
  
• Halász P. György Kurtág: Magyar zeneszerzok 3. Mágus Kiadó, 1998.
  
• Hodkinson J. Aphorisms, fragments and paratactic synthesis: Hölderlin references and compositional style in György Kurtág’s ‘…quasi una fantasia’. Musik & Forsk 2004;29:25-32.
  
• Ivry B. György Kurtág: Great Hungarian Jewish composer, no monk. Jewish Daily Forward, 27-FEB-2009.
  
• Jenkins H. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU, 2008.
  
• Koster R. A Theory of Fun for Game Design. ParaGlyph, 2004.
  
• Lessig L. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Basic, 2000.
  
• Marino M. Critical Code Studies. Electronic Book Review: electro-poetics, 04-DEC-2006.
  
• Masih T, ed. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. RoseMetal, 2009.
  
• Montfort N. Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. MIT, 2005.
  
• Nelson G. Inform Designer’s Manual. 4e. Sanderson, 2006.
  
• Reed A. Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. CourseTechnology, 2010.
  
• Rogers S. Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design. Wiley, 2010.
  
• Rounds D. The Four and the One: In Praise of String Quartets. Lost Coast, 1999.
  
• Schell J. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Morgan Kaufmann, 2008.
  
• Shapard R, Thomas J, eds. Flash Fiction Forward. Norton, 2006.
  
• Siebel P. Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming. Apress, 2009.
  
• Stern J. Micro Fiction. Norton, 1996.

Britten’s ‘St. Nicolas’ Cantata Op. 42 in Aldeburgh: The Importance of ‘Place’

I    believe in roots, in associations, in backgrounds, in personal relationships. I want my music to be of use to people, to please them, to enhance their lives. My music has its roots in where I live and work.”
  —  Benjamin Britten, 1964, remarks upon receiving the Aspen Award.

I    want to write for people... There is something very fresh and unrestrained in the quality of the music produced by amateurs. What annoys me more is the ineptitude of some professionals who don’t know their stuff. I have no patience with that.”
  —  Benjamin Britten.

B etween the two World Wars, composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, and others fostered a kind of pre-WWII musical Renaissance. But in the 1940s, a new generation of artists began to differentiate themselves from the previous generation.

I   t is encouraging that you too sense that something in the air that heralds a ‘renaissance’. I feel terrifically conscious of it—so do Peter [Pears], & Clifford [Curzon], & Michael Tippett & so many that I love & admire it—[and it] is good to add you to the list! Whether we are the voices crying in the wilderness or the thing itself, it isn’t for us to know, but anyhow it is so very exciting. It is of course in all of the arts, but in music, particularly, it’s this acceptance of freedom without any arbitrary restrictions, this simplicity, this contact with the audiences of our own time, & of people like ourselves, this seriousness, & above all this professionalism. One mustn’t and can’t deny the many heavenly genius[es] of the last century, but it is also a greater sympathy with the earlier centuries that marks this thing perhaps the most clearly.”
  —  Benjamin Britten, letter to Imogen Holst, OCT-1943.

T here is little doubt that Britten and his generation were ‘the thing itself’. Their sounds were not only ‘new’ but were emblematic of their nation and their generation. Britten’s Op. 42, the ‘St. Nicolas’ Cantata, represents one important embodiment of that.

O ne might think that a nationally and generationally emblematic sound would require in each performer a fully developed timbre and musical maturity to pull it off. But that is not so.

I  heard a rehearsal yesterday (Saturday, 13-NOV) afternoon in Aldeburgh, and the choirs and the boy singing the part of young Nicolas are mightily motivated from their pure love of music. They simply and obviously love making music happen. Their upcoming performance of ‘St. Nicolas’ next Saturday will not only be really special in regard to the historic setting and all that; it will also be most consonant with Britten’s original intentions and ethos for this piece. This semi-staged production celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sir Peter Pears, who sang the part of Saint Nicolas in the work’s première in Aldeburgh Parish Church in 1948, as part of the very first Aldeburgh Festival.

T he Solstice String Quartet will lead the other performers from the front desks (a string quartet at the front, leading the rest, is a feature that Britten himself suggested). Andrew Staples (tenor) will perform the part of the adult Nicolas. The Jubilee Opera Chorus and the Britten-Pears Chamber Choir, along with members of local boys’ and girls’ choirs complete the ensemble, antiphonally positioned in the church sanctuary. The conductor will be Steuart Bedford.

S teuart’s conducting during the rehearsal last evening indicated that, apart from his great renown as a Britten scholar, he has a special talent for teaching youngsters. He communicates every bit of the excitement and humor in this score to the youngest of choristers in a very engaging manner.

T    he conductor should be cool-headed...”
  — Benjamin Britten, conductor’s notes for Op. 42.

• Introduction
  
• The Birth of Nicolas
  
• Nicolas Devotes Himself to God
  
• He Journeys to Palestine
  
• Nicolas Comes to Myra and Is Chosen Bishop
  
• Nicolas from Prison
  
• Nicolas and the Pickled Boys
  
• His Piety and Marvellous Works
  
• The Death of Nicolas

W    ithin the second movement are mischievous musical inventions, as when Nicolas swims in the bath, percussion imitating the water’s bubbling and splashing. During ‘He Journeys to Palestine’ all the musical components swirl into the tempest that threatens the voyager, and the melodic line becomes more dissonant as a storm approaches, silencing the male chorus. The children’s chorus, singing from the back gallery, rises like the flickering of lightning: ‘Winds and tempests howl their cry of battle through the raging sky! Ah!’ and the men plead for safety. As the storm subsides, the soloist emerges; his prayer is musically direct: ‘Pity Our Simplicity’ underlined by the hum of the tympani. The stars now visible in the clear sky twinkle in the light fingering of the pianist in the instrument’s upper octaves.”
  —  Jaime Robles, review of Chora Nova performance, November, 2007.

T he second movement (The Birth of Nicolas) initiates the account of Nicolas’ life, recounting the story of his miraculous birth, when “...from his mother’s womb he sprang and cried, ‘God be glorified!’” The tone of the boy treble singing the part of young Nicolas in this production—tender, flutey, and high, a clarion-call on high-E (E4) without vibrato or other world-wise colorings—is superb. The boy wanders through the sanctuary taking up various stations—from a back pew, to up front by a column, to the pulpit, to the chancel—emitting this high-pitched proclamation.

A ndrew Staples’ tenor voice has substance and a jaunty worldliness but is sweet as well—conveying that this is who the child grew up to become. When well-sung, these two parts are credibly the same person, heard across time. After six ‘stations’ or strophic episodes, the transformation of boy into the man is complete. When at the end of these the boy becomes a man, the movement closes with the full-voiced adult tenor singing the refrain. At the moment that Nicolas becomes a man, the supporting harmonies become dissonant, creating a sizzling semitone frisson symbolically marking the end of childhood.

I n the third movement, which features the tenor soloist exclusively, Nicolas sings of his experiences after his parents’ deaths. In “the wider world of man” he finds hopelessness, faithlessness, and poverty, which made him angry and heartsick.

N icolas is ordained as bishop in the fifth movement, at the conclusion of which the audience joins in singing a familiar hymn, the Old 100th [Psalm]. Using the audience to sing the familiar Nunc dimittis in the ninth movement is likewise very atmospheric and powerfully evokes memories of remote childhood church experiences for adults. Scary engagement of primal, limbic emotions—in the face of which our ‘adult’ reason is quite helpless.

A    new and important element in Saint Nicolas was the inclusion of the congregation in the musical action. These hymn tunes were familiar to a generation educated in English public schools, where chapel and hymn singing were daily events. It drew them back to their own childhood, at the same time demanded a level of participation beyond passive listening. This remarkable layering of musical elements . . . provides no small part of the pleasure we have in listening to this work. And the humility of a great composer writing serious music within the capabilities of ordinary people explains the continuing favor this music finds half a century after its composition. Britten was always a very practical composer who was equally at home whether writing for modest amateur performances or for international occasions with virtuoso professional soloists… Saint Nicolas was Britten’s first large-scale work written with mainly amateur performers in mind, and is a wonderful example of his outstanding ability to capture the essence of his subject-matter with a series of dramatic yet essentially simple ideas to which performers and audiences can immediately relate.”
  —  John Bawden, Musical Director (1994 - 2006), Fareham Philharmonic Choir.

T he seventh movement has tremendous drama and pathos. Here we have Nicolas as patron saint of children in the story of an innkeeper/butcher who robs and murders three young students, preserving and hiding their remains in a pickling tub. ‘Pickled Boys’: what a perfect gnarly image for all 9 year-old boys! Nicolas miraculously resuscitates the pickled kids, who then proceed to sing an enthusiastic Alleluia!

N   o question: there’s something unmistakably ‘fresh and unrestrained’ about Britten’s score, something that comes directly from the pleasure he took in writing for these performers. From the dizzy waltz that underscores ‘The Birth of Nicolas’, through the powerfully dramatic tenor numbers to the resounding final chorus, Saint Nicolas unerringly hits its mark. Understandably enough, Crozier’s libretto glosses quickly over Nicolas’s role as protector of prostitutes and pawnbrokers – but the extended, deliciously macabre episode of ‘Nicolas and the Pickled Boys’ (added at Britten’s own suggestion) shows a gleefully Roald Dahl-like understanding of the less-than-wholesome tastes of the young ‘little blighters’.”
  —  Richard Bratby, program notes, Barbican 2008.

T he eighth movement is sung by the choirs alone, as they recall the kindness of Nicolas, keeping “his memory alive in legends that our children and their children’s children treasure still.”

T he ending, including the audience, singing “God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform” is staggeringly moving, even for non-Christians, whipping up a transgenerational cosmic universality of the human condition and commending the moral necessity of our behaving civilly and charitably toward each other—toward our children and grandchildren, and toward our parents and grandparents. Heard in its original setting here in Aldeburgh Parish Church, the piece evokes a powerful sense of the importance of ‘place’—of how important our local culture and situatedness are, to the project of creating and conserving deep meaning in our lives.

I n all, it is ‘so very exciting’, just as Britten once wrote! Consider yourself very lucky to be able to attend next Saturday afternoon’s performance of ‘St. Nicolas’ in its ur-venue, the ancient and atmospheric church in Aldeburgh, and performed by local artists with audience participation. Tickets are nearly sold-out and, judging from the rehearsal, this performance will be fully up to the historic, ‘jubilee’ anniversary billing.

• BoySoloist.com
  
• Britten-Pears Foundation
  
• Steuart Bedford page at HarrisonParrott artist management website
  
• Pre-1963 Britten scores at Boosey & Hawkes
  
• Op. 42 study score (B&H) at SheetMusicPlus.com
  
• ChoralNet.org
  
• Aldeburgh Music Festival
  
• Solstice String Quartet website
  
• Berger H, Anderson J. Situated Utterances: Texts, Bodies, and Cultural Representations. Fordham Univ, 2005.
  
• Bridcut J. Britten's Children. Faber & Faber, 2007.
  
• Holst I. Britten’s Saint Nicolas. Tempo 1948; 10:23–5.
  
• Matthews D. Britten. Haus, 2005.
  
• Reed P, Cooke M, eds. Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, 1913-1976: Volume Five: 1958-1965. Boydell, 2010.
  
• Walker L, ed. Benjamin Britten: New Perspectives on His Life and Work. Boydell, 2009.
  
• Britten B. St Nicolas Cantata, Op. 42. (Decca, 1955; 2004 remastered) [Peter Pears - tenor; Ralph Downes - organ; Girls’ Choir of Sir John Leman School, Beccles; Boys’ Choir of Ipswich School Preparatory Department, Three boys from the Choir of St. Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich; Aldeburgh Festival Choir and Orchestra, Benjamin Britten conducting; David Hemmings (then 13) as boy Nicolas]

N   icolas was born in answer to prayer,
in answer to prayer, in answer to prayer,
And leaping from his mother's womb he cried-
GOD BE GLORIFIED!

Swaddling bands and crib awaited him there,
awaited him there, awaited him there,
But Nicolas clapped both his hands and cried-
GOD BE GLORIFIED!

Innocent and joyful, naked and fair,
naked and fair, naked and fair,
He came in pride on earth to abide-
GOD BE GLORIFIED!

Water rippled Welcome! in the bathtub by his side,
bathtub by his side, bathtub by his side.
He dived in open-eyed, he swam, he cried-
GOD BE GLORIFIED!

When he went to Church at Christmastide,
at Christmastide, at Christmastide,
He climbed up to the font to be baptized.
GOD BE GLORIFIED!

Pilgrims came to kneel and pray by his side,
to pray by his side, to pray by his side.
He grew in grace, his name was sanctified.
GOD BE GLORIFIED!

Nicolas grew in innocence and pride,
in innocence and pride, in innocence and pride, in pride....
His glory spread a rainbow round the countryside, round the countryside.
‘Nicolas will be a Saint! Nicolas will be a Saint! Nicolas will be a Saint!’ the neighbors cried.
GOD BE GLORIFIED!”
  — Op. 42, ii.