Barrett, Richard (b. 1959)

[Beef Oven!]

It's not just any leaf though, but the line traced by this chain of leaves in Andy Goldsworthy's film Rivers and Tides,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yRHilnkb9E (from 4'00" until 6'00")

as it's carried downstream, was a starting-point for thinking about how the music traces a line through the range of sounds a flute can produce, and how the form of the piece proceeds towards the breakup and disappearance of the floating leaves as they reach the sea (which was an imaginary extrapolation from the film). Doesn't matter if you don't hear it like that of course!

Thanks. Having watched part 7 now, I look forward to listening again with this in mind. I think I get it now, anyway.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've just posted this on the "YouTube Videos with Scores" Thread. I think it's pretty damn good - and I hope that CONSTRUCTION gets the commercially-available recording it deserves soon:

[Beef Oven!]

Many thanks for posting this, ferney.

A really good section, very tantalising. And likewise, I really hope that CONSTRUCTION gets some kind of release.

[Richard Barrett]

I hope that CONSTRUCTION gets the commercially-available recording it deserves soon

So do I! As you said in the Youtube score thread about Ferneyhough's orchestral music, a piece like this is a statement of optimism that such things are still possible to do. ScoreFollower (with my approval, lest this isn't clear) has posted a few excerpts from the 2011 premiere on his Youtube channel, excluding some parts which I felt didn't come off so well - rehearsing a two-hour-plus piece like this in four days isn't an ideal situation to work in! - though anyone who's missing the complete BBC recording is welcome to get in touch. Eventually there'll be one or more further performances that we can make a releasable recording from. Hopefully in our lifetimes!

[Bryn]

So do I! As you said in the Youtube score thread about Ferneyhough's orchestral music, a piece like this is a statement of optimism that such things are still possible to do. ScoreFollower (with my approval, lest this isn't clear) has posted a few excerpts from the 2011 premiere on his Youtube channel, excluding some parts which I felt didn't come off so well - rehearsing a two-hour-plus piece like this in four days isn't an ideal situation to work in! - though anyone who's missing the complete BBC recording is welcome to get in touch. Eventually there'll be one or more further performances that we can make a releasable recording from. Hopefully in our lifetimes!

And in 8 channel 4D surround sound Blu-ray with score-following for display on big screen TV.

[BBMmk2]

Richard Barrett, how about works for concert band and brass band?

[Richard Barrett]

Richard Barrett, how about works for concert band and brass band?

I don't believe such ensembles are generally in the habit of commissioning composers whose work firstly involves the kind of challenges mine does and secondly might not be considered the kind of thing their audiences would appreciate, but if one were to make such an unlikely suggestion I would certainly be open to it. The players in their turn would have to be open to doing things they probably wouldn't have done very much, if at all, before. All of the music I've ever heard for ensembles like this has been quite conservative in nature (with the exception of Stockhausen's Luzifers Tanz for symphonic wind band with vocal and instrumental soloists), and I have the impression this is the way they like it. I wouldn't wish to foist on musicians something they wouldn't get anything out of playing, and there are plenty of composers who are happy to work within those stylistic restrictions.

[BBMmk2]

Thanks RB. Concert bands and brass bands are always seeking new music tio play. The right circumstances could achieve this. I could put the word out, if you like?

[Richard Barrett]

Concert bands and brass bands are always seeking new music to play.

I'm sure they are but if they were seeking anything close to the kind of thing I'm writing they would have found some by now, which as far as I know they haven't. It's kind of you to offer to put the word out, but I'm really not short of work in the coming years!

[BBMmk2]

I'm sure they are but if they were seeking anything close to the kind of thing I'm writing they would have found some by now, which as far as I know they haven't. It's kind of you to offer to put the word out, but I'm really not short of work in the coming years!

Ah I have that on the back burner.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't believe such ensembles are generally in the habit of commissioning composers whose work firstly involves the kind of challenges mine does and secondly might not be considered the kind of thing their audiences would appreciate, but if one were to make such an unlikely suggestion I would certainly be open to it. The players in their turn would have to be open to doing things they probably wouldn't have done very much, if at all, before. All of the music I've ever heard for ensembles like this has been quite conservative in nature (with the exception of Stockhausen's Luzifers Tanz for symphonic wind band with vocal and instrumental soloists), and I have the impression this is the way they like it. I wouldn't wish to foist on musicians something they wouldn't get anything out of playing, and there are plenty of composers who are happy to work within those stylistic restrictions.

Some of the most thrilling brass ensemble passages I've come across were in Henze's "The Tedious Way to the Place of Natasha Ungeheuer", of 1972, combining polyrhythmic and (I'm pretty sure, not having seen the score) aleatoric instrumental groupings within strict time slots. There seemed to be much more of this kind of thing around then and in the 1960s than today, as I distantly recall from taping Music in Our Time programmes. It undoubtedly rubbed off on approaches used by avant-garde jazz and erstwhile jazz composer/performers, and is still around in such as Barry Guy and Alex Sclippenbach, though not given much attention by the "classical world" who probably see these people as being "just jazz". There was also David Bedford's wonderful simulation of electronic textures in his large brass ensemble 1971 work "Stars, Clusters, Nebulae and Place Names in Devon".

[Richard Barrett]

Some of the most thrilling brass ensemble passages I've come across were in Henze's "The Tedious Way to the Place of Natasha Ungeheuer", of 1972, combining polyrhythmic and (I'm pretty sure, not having seen the score) aleatoric instrumental groupings within strict time slots. There seemed to be much more of this kind of thing around then and in the 1960s than today, as I distantly recall from taping Music in Our Time programmes. It undoubtedly rubbed off on approaches used by avant-garde jazz and erstwhile jazz composer/performers, and is still around in such as Barry Guy and Alex Sclippenbach, though not given much attention by the "classical world" who probably see these people as being "just jazz". There was also David Bedford's wonderful simulation of electronic textures in his large brass ensemble 1971 work "Stars, Clusters, Nebulae and Place Names in Devon".

There are indeed many wonderful uses of brass/wind ensembles like the ones you mention, but the brass band as mentioned by BBM is a particular type of ensemble with its own instrumentation, which varies from one country to another. Neither the Bedford work (more or less an orchestral brass section, plus choir of course) nor the Henze (brass quintet) has anything like the highly standardised instrumentation of the British brass band.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There's Birtwistle's incomplete Trilogy for Brass Band, of course - Grimethorpe Aria and Salford Toccata. But Birtwistle's reasons for not completing the trilogy sums up the difficultiesRichard mentions. Without the encouragement of Elgar Haworth, Brass Bands are not enthusiastic for new repertoire that takes them out of their accustomed playing techniques. How often are the two extant panels performed these days? (We're moving a little off topic - might there be interest in a dedicated Thread devoted to New works for Brass Band?)

[Richard Barrett]

There's Birtwistle's incomplete Trilogy for Brass Band, of course - Grimethorpe Aria and Salford Toccata. But Birtwistle's reasons for not completing the trilogy sums up the difficultiesRichard mentions. Without the encouragement of Elgar Haworth, Brass Bands are not enthusiastic for new repertoire that takes them out of their accustomed playing techniques. How often are the two extant panels performed these days? (We're moving a little off topic - might there be interest in a dedicated Thread devoted to New works for Brass Band?)

I've never even heard the second of these pieces, though Aria is a beautiful thing, as is David Lumsdaine's Evensong, also from the mid 70s. Then you have Henze's Ragtimes and Habaneras, and that would be all of the (stylistically) contemporary music for brass band I've heard, though I'm not sure the Henze really counts as it's one of his more pastiche-ish numbers.

[Serial_Apologist]

There are indeed many wonderful uses of brass/wind ensembles like the ones you mention, but the brass band as mentioned by BBM is a particular type of ensemble with its own instrumentation, which varies from one country to another. Neither the Bedford work (more or less an orchestral brass section, plus choir of course) nor the Henze (brass quintet) has anything like the highly standardised instrumentation of the British brass band.

Yes, of course, I'd forgotten!