Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival - radio programme transcripts (3)

Programme 3

(Christopher Fox)

We start off with the eight live singers and then they’re joined by another eight singers pre- recorded, and then another eight singers, and another eight singers until we end up with forty- eight singers: eight live ones and forty more pre-recorded. My intention was just to fill St Paul’s; to fill it with these fantastic voices.

What will come as a big surprise to some people is that a piece being written in 2008 is using words that were written in the middle of the fourteenth century. This man, Guillaume Machaut, was sitting in Paris writing wonderful poetry which he was dedicating to a young woman who he very much admired. It’s those poems which I’ve used in this piece.

Sometimes as a composer you know what the words are that you want to use. I knew what I wanted the voices to sound like, but it took a while to work out exactly what it was. But I thought it was going to be modern French and then it gradually occurred to me I wanted something which wasn’t so modern. So I worked my way back until I ended up in1360.

All these texts are about love. It’s about Machaut pouring his heart out to this woman. How beautiful she is, how sometimes loving her makes him unhappier, how at other times it makes him very happy. There’s a sort of directness and simplicity there which one doesn’t find all that much in more recent poetry.

One of the reasons I called it commes ses paroles which means “like his words” is because it is like Machaut but it’s not Machaut any longer. But he was a huge help. I don’t think it matters whether people who hear the piece can speak medieval French or modern French or French at all. The piece will stand on its own two feet.

It’s a big deal for me. It still completely delights me that Huddersfield is the centre of the new music world. At the moment I’m living in London, I do some teaching and some of my students are post-graduate students from overseas. I love the fact that they all know about the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. They’re always amazed that it’s actually not anywhere near London. And that’s such a great achievement for Richard Steinitz who set it up and for all the people who have been involved with it ever since. Long may it continue.

(Graham MacKenzie)

Graham MacKenzie Festival Director

When Chris approached me about writing for voice and cello and electronics, we talked initially about a shorter piece and I think that was what was in Chris’s mind. But immediately in my head I could hear and feel this large piece that would vibrate around St Paul’s Hall.

(Voice Over)

The contributor was the composer Christopher Fox speaking from Brunel University; music commes ses paroles by Christopher Fox, performed by Exaudi;

Festival Shorts are produced by Beaumont Street Studios.