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September 2007, Page 8.
Index of articles:
by subject,
by date.
In this issue:
(September 2007)
Prosperity,
Question,
Venite,
Harmony?
Rivals in harmonious noise?
In 2005 the Sinfonia of Leeds held a composers’ competition. Entrants had to write a piece of music lasting between five and ten minutes for a symphony orchestra, and the judges would select four pieces to be semi-finalists. These pieces would be played at a rehearsal, after which the judges and the orchestra together would choose a winning piece. Rev’d Paul Ayers (the vicar of Pudsey) wrote a piece and sent it in, and it reached the semi-final.
This year the orchestra is holding another competition. Paul told me about it, so I wrote one and sent it in, and Paul has written another. We await news of the shortlistings with nervous anticipation!
Paul’s first piece, “Pen y Ghent” was inspired by a walk up the mountain of that name. It begins in the swirling mists and gathers force as the hillside steepens and the clouds roll away. It expresses the fact that you can begin a walk by casual drifting, but you have to find a certain resolve to do the hard work of climbing. The view from the top is majestic and awe-inspiring, but it’s also a bit mysterious and you wonder quite which bits of the scenery are which. I think it’s a fine piece of music and well worth a listen. You’ll have to ask the Pudsey Mothers’ Union - they’ve heard it. One of the wonderful things about modern computers is they can simulate symphony orchestras ... not exactly, but enough to give you a reasonable idea of what the piece sounds like - and Paul has played it to the MU members there.
My entry, “A strange kind of king” is comfortably less highbrow than Paul’s. In fact, my wife’s comment on it was “The opening bit would make a good mobile-phone ring-tone!” It takes a romp through some episodes in the brief reign of the strangest king ever: his arrival on the wrong sort of horse, the dispute at the gates about who he was, his upsetting the tables and having ointment poured on him, the controversy about whether he was a wonderful healer or simply a fraud, and his funeral march within the week: followed by claims that you can’t keep a good man down.
Meanwhile Paul’s entry for this year, entitled “Gloria”, is a fearsomely complicated and difficult piece that will have all the players on the edges of their seats during the quick sections at the start and the end. Maybe, even if his piece doesn’t win the competition, I’ll be able to persuade him to make it available for a wider audience?
John Hartley