RICL 345 - Philip Venables - numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde
numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde
For Four Voices (SATB) and String Quartet
Text by Simon Howard (2011)
numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde was commissioned by Endymion and EXAUDI, with funds generously provided by the RVW Trust, Marina Kleinwort Charitable Trust, the Leche Trust,the Golden Bottle Trust, the Golsoncott Foundation, the Ernest Cooke Trust, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Holst Foundation
numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde was first performed at the Southbank Centre on 19th September 2011 by Endymion and EXAUDI, conducted by James Weeks
Programme Note
numbers 76–80 : tristan und isolde is the second of several ‘settings’ of the poems of Simon Howard, whose work I find incredibly inspiring. To me they are unfussy, evocative, violent and visceral. Absolutely the qualities I look for in music.
This piece continues my preoccupation with mixing spoken text with chamber music, and for concentrating melodrama and meaning into simple but vivid music images. For example, in this piece, references to wasps, death, Wagner and Beethoven. The poem tells a story, which I have kept intact and immediate in the musical setting of it.
Just like Simon's poem, the piece is in 5 parts, numbers 76, 77, 78, 79 and 80. Parts of the poem are narrated in chorus in between musical tableaux. The central movement is for the vocal quartet only. The rest are dominated by the string quartet. Each section of string movement is less active than the preceding.
The strings play only on a 6-note scale (G, A flat, B flat, C flat, D flat, E double flat) and the voices sing only the remaining six pitches. This leaves the voices with the 'Tristan' chord, transposed up a semitone, of A, E, F sharp and C, plus an additional E flat and F natural. The only exception is the soprano's G in the final section: strings rotate slowly around four pitches, setting up a condensed tragic Liebestod in the final bars – the only time when singing is accompanied by strings.
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Instrumentation
Four Voices (SATB)
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Violoncello
Performance notes
The passages spoken by the vocal ensemble must immediately follow from or lead into the string music, with as little gap as possible.
Strings should maintain a beautiful sound with vibrato and depth of tone, as they would with older music.
Do not allow the gaps between movements to be too long.
Duration: ca 14 minutes
numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde
76. For one year minus one day & it was not a leap year she sculpted a head of the Marquis de Sade from wasps especially desiccated yet kept artificially alive by means of a process known only to her aunt & uncle (although he was less than 12 feet tall). 77. When the head was completed she wrapped it in wet bandages & delivered it by hand (she wore gloves) to the next but nearest police station; the dampness of the bandages dis-suspended the animation of the wasps & de Sade’s head (maintaining its shape although blurred in outline) swarmed upon the police stinging & goading them to acts of polymorphous madness. 78. Her uncle happily was present & thus filmed the festival. 79. The following year having precisely deconstructed the head of de Sade & reutilising the given materials she sculpted a head of The Unnamed Supermodel repeating both time span & presentation process, however the police were upon their guard & massacred her aunt who on this occasion had possession of the cinema camera. 80. It was inevitably her duty to avenge her dead aunt her less than 12 feet tall uncle having been driven polymorphously sane by the loss of his lifetime companion, so she set about constructing a hallucination from several oak trees 3 soft-boiled eggs & an original copy of a copy of Fragonard’s Le Verrou & this hallucination was of the Death Mask of Beethoven –she knew that she could die happy & so she did
Narrated clearly and evenly in unison, without too much inflexion
accent the words indicated
76.
For one year minus one day & it was not a leap year she sculpted a head of the Marquis de Sade from wasps
(each rehearsal letter indicates gestural unison of 3+ players)
attacca immediately after 'wasps'
Vln. I
Vln. II
Vla.
I
Vln. I Vln. II
spoken, as before especially desiccated yet kept artificially alive by means of a process known only to her aunt & uncle (although he was less than twelve feet tall).
spoken, as before
77.
When the head was completed she wrapped it in wet bandages & delivered it by hand (she wore gloves) to the next but nearest police station; the dampness of the bandages dis-suspended the animation of the wasps
attacca immediately after 'wasps'
I
II
and de Sade's head (maintaining its shape although blurred in outline) swarmed upon the police stinging & goading them to acts of polymorphous madness. spoken as before
her mff
uncle-hahahappi-ly-was p present f - her mff uncleher mff
79.
The following year having precisely deconstructed the head of de Sade & reutilising the given materials she sculpted a head of The Unnamed Supermodel repeating both time span & presentation process, however the police were upon their guard & massacred her aunt
attacca immediately after 'aunt'
Vln.
Vln.
Seemingly timeless q = 60
spoken, as before, more quietly
It was inevitably her duty to avenge her dead aunt her less than 12 feet tall uncle having been driven polymorphously sane by the loss of his lifetime companion, so she set about constructing a hallucination from several oak trees
3 soft boiled eggs & an original copy of a copy of Fragonard's Le Verrou
Vln. I
Vln. II
Vla.
remove one or two bars if soprano requires
(ATB tutti) quieter slower and very quiet (no dim.) (no
& this hallucination was of the Death Mask of Beethoven — she knew that she could die happy & so she did
