Time To Dance

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One of the things I most enjoy about performances at Shakespeare’s Globe on London’s Bankside is that when the play is over, the actors and musicians cap it with a celebratory after-dance or ‘jig’ in the Shakespearean tradition—a wonderful way of bringing performers and audience together in a communal letting-down-of-the-hair. After spending fifty minutes singing about dance, I thought it would be fun to have my singers lay down their music scores (I ensure they have to do this by giving them some hand-clapping to do), and actually dance. My After-dance sets words by Shakespeare’s contemporary John Davies, in which the very creation of the world itself is accomplished through dance (and, of course music).

Well, it’s clear that the years I spent in the study and practice of Javanese gamelan music have been a huge influence. What interests me is adapting the deeper structures and compositional principles of gamelan music to Western resources. Steve Reich put it quite neatly: "one can study the rhythmic structure of non-Western music and let that study lead where it will, while continuing to use the instruments, scales and any other sounds one has grown up with". One of the most formative things I grew up with was singing, so I feel very much at home composing vocal/choral music. But when I come to work in a new medium, I take time to study with a master in that form. So when I was commissioned to compose a string quartet, for example, I spent a lot of time listening to Haydn. A Time to Dance is my first attempt at a cantata. I’m keen to do more, and so I’m now spending a lot of time listening to Bach.Time to Dance, music comes into being when the air is made to dance. For me, the most inspiring composer from this point of view is Bach. His music is infused with the spirit of dance. He must have been a great dancer – just look at the pedal parts in some of his organ works! Even in the most deeply felt movements of the great Passion settings, his music sets the spirit dancing. And for me, the measure of great Bach performers is the way they make the music dance. That’s one reason why I feel so privileged to work with Ex Cathedra’s inspirational conductor, Jeffrey Skidmore. So yes, I spend quite a lot of time both singing and dancing around when I’m composing, although I make great efforts not to disturb the neighbours. The influence of Bach arose from the simple fact that the new work was to be premiered alongside a performance of Bach’s Magnificat, and so it was a given that I would compose for the same forces: soloists, choir, and an orchestra of two flutes, two oboes (each doubling on oboe d’amore), bassoon, three trumpets, timpani, strings and a small ‘continuo’ organ. The only change I made was for the percussionist to put aside Bach’s timpani in favour of a pair of handbells to toll the passing hours, and an array of unpitched instruments to add a dash of colour where appropriate (such as the obbligato parts for desk bell, washboard and dinner gong in No 16). Composing for ‘period instruments’ was a fascinating challenge (most noticeable in the valveless trumpets with their limited range of notes), and I am most grateful to the members of the Ex Cathedra Baroque Ensemble for their advice.

Roth’s long relationship with Jeffrey Skidmore and Ex Cathedra has already yielded the exceptional Shared Ground (Signum, 2011), and their follow-up collaboration is even stronger. A Time to Dance is an hour-long cantata for a quartet of SATB soloists, choir and orchestra (here a Baroque band, inspired by the work’s original commission as a companion piece for Bach’s Magnificat), with all the makings of a modern classic—a work you’d want to perform and, crucially, perform again. It is a pity Ms Kirwan seems to regret her role because of the publicity it received at the time. She was only 19 and felt she did not have enough support.The class Nelson goes to is on religious education and the teacher quotes a passage from the bible with its lines, "a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to wear down and a time to build...a time to mourn and a time to dance..." The school is the religiously named St John the Baptist and the time for dancing that Nelson has half-seen and half-understood was a baptism of sorts if we take it colloquially to mean an initiation. Nelson may not quite know what that means for a couple of years more but it is one of those events that can seem more consequential retrospectively than at the time, as the boy will come to understand his mum is a sex worker on anti-depressants, while he is well-aware of being a truant with a squint eye. It is a story full of pathos but MacLaverty's achievement is to allow us to view it too as a tale of two hypocrites who want to keep from each other what they do with their days. MacLaverty asks us not to judge but to allow the sadness to seep in And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law… I hope this fine recording will bring it to the attention of a wider public, as it deserves. I hope also that other choirs will take it up, especially as it can be performed on modern instruments.” Bernard MacLaverty is an Irish writer with a “Belfast accent, which has never left him, despite having lived and worked in Edinburgh, Glasgow and, remarkably, Islay in the Inner Hebrides.” (The Irish Voice) He may have lived for many years in Scotland but much of his work has focused on Ireland or alludes to the country, including his fivenovels, Cal , Lamb , Grace Notes , The Anatomy School and Midwinter Break . MacLaverty is still very much seen as an Irish writer rather than a Scottish one and yet a story like 'A Time to Dance' manages to capture the city, Edinburgh, in which it is set while also making clear the main characters are very much from elsewhere.