Here a two minute video which I made today at the Cosy Nook at the Red House, Aldeburgh
Day 6 to 12 Composing Residency: Revelations of Divine Love
Wednesday 16 February 2022
Thursday 10 February 2022
On Releasing Creativity: Day 5, Composing Retreat at Aldeburgh
On Releasing Creativity
Day 5 of Composing Retreat at Aldeburgh
The painter Degas said
“ I only do good things when I don’t know what I am doing”
or as TS Elliot put it in his Four Quartets,
” Sometimes you have to go to where you don’t want to go
in order to get to were you want to”
Aldeburgh Beach
In my case I am on a mission during this two week retreat at Aldeburgh to sketch out a cantata inspired by Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and their relation to experiences of the pandemic. Day five and I am on schedule but not without trepidation at times that I may not be able to generate good enough ideas. Sometimes I feel like a sperm donor. At these moments it feels like an effort and then suddenly it all flows again so to speak.
Morning warm-up visual score exploring orchestral textures: Self, 2022
I sense I am creative because of my early years when I spent most of the time with my mother who suffered a very extended and severe clinical depression. Of course at the time I knew no better and to this day, I love nothing more than making mud pies in the rain or going off into woodland without telling anyone where I am going. My mum rallied with ballet classes. I love movement with music. But like all sadness there was a silver lining to living with a depressed Mum. My imagination knew no limits and it still doesn’t. Thats why I compose large orchestral works and paint huge canvases.
Snape at high tide
Being on this retreat at Aldeburgh has given me time again to really invest in my creative process without the distractions of everyday life. A Room of My Own as Virginia Wolf would describe it. I pepper my day with other activities as well as composing: painting Mandalas, walking, filming and making soundscapes. All of this feeds my composer mind and keeps me going with the composition.
Mandala I: Self 2022
Here is my first Mandala of the retreat which is very apt since it looks like a womb with a potential being in the centre. Julian talks about God as being the mother of all things, I was setting those words today.
Boardwalk at Snape
Yesterday at Snape I found my name SELF attached to two others on this boardwalk . It reminded me of the quote from Jung
“ He who goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself.
The mirror does not flatter, its tells the truth”
This is exactly what it feels like being a creative. Work may not end up being what I wanted because my true self is leading me to a different solution. Its at this point that I see some artists give up on their creative practices because they feel they have no control. But the truth is we are not in control as creatives and the chaos is often where the real alchemy lies.
Self in the boardwalk at Snape
Today walking on the late afternoon beach at Aldeburgh, a fabulous cloud presented itself like a force of cosmic inspiration. Here is a 3 minute video I made of it called Imagine the Sea. It is inspired by knowing John Cage. The first half is accompanied by silence then incongruously you hear bird song and winds chimes outside Benjamin Britten’s composition studio at Red House. Finally the sea sighs. It is a meditation. Relax and let your imagination soar. Here is the link:
Wednesday 9 February 2022
The Composers Garden: Day 4, Composing Retreat at Aldeburgh
Day 4: Composing Retreat at Aldeburgh
The Composer’s Garden
Relax and allow the power of TheComposer's Garden to heal and restore you.
Soundscape by Seawolf
There is something very Zen about a composer’s garden. It is as though their music hovers in the wind and is remembered by the plants. In Britten’s Red House garden there is exquisite detail at every turn and twist. Exploring it is like discovering his personality. Looming near the bottom of the garden is a massive archive built in glamorous red brick. It is an eternal repository for the pharaoh’s riches. Passing by the house, closed for the winter, I can hear chimes driven by a strong wind. They are as alluring as the three abstract sirens set for eternity in granite near the archive. I sit for a moment on the bench where Britten may have sat and then approach his custom built studio. Composition Studio it says in bold letters. Here is a composer who know what he is about. I see a statue of a boy, the head is reminiscent of the composer. I turn towards the pond where a friendly metal duck watches over the tadpoles. The reflected Suffolk sky is epic. Back at the Cosy Nook where Britten’s house keeper lived, I see water from an abandoned plastic table refracted in the concrete wall, it looks like a space ship on a cosmic journey or even a breast! Later I see a double rainbow as I walk near Snape. I have made a simple soundscape to go with this 9 minute film shot on Go Pro.
Monday 7 February 2022
She Gives Me Fever: Day 3, Composing Retreat at Aldeburgh
Composing Retreat in The Cosy Nook at Aldeburgh: Day 3
She has High Fever
She is Delirious with Weeping
Her Tears mingle with Drops of Sweat
The Salty Darkness is Upon Her.
Libretto: Revelations of Divine Love: Self 2022
Today I have been working on composing the section of Revelations of Divine Love that refers to the Fourteenth century anchorite, Julian of Norwich 's fever. She experiences delirium, the dark night of the soul, alchemical burning down to white ash, paranoia and rebirth. This relates to issues generated by the pandemic. I find it tough personal work.
Up till Christmas I could not bear to watch any documentaries about Covid patients. I was too frightened that I might get it. Perhaps I am uncommonly aware of the dire consequences of being stuck down by a maverick virus. Bornholm’s, which I had when I was 14 rampantly attacks the diaphragm area with excruciating shooting pain. It was accompanied by 10 days of extremely high fever.
Then I experienced a debilitating version of Glandular fever at 19 which rendered me unable to even push down one note on the piano. I lost three years of my study at The Royal College of Music. More recently in middle age I developed Shingles four years ago. Its effects were quickly reversed by the anti-virals that were developed to treat AIDs. Once you have had chicken pox, the virus lives eternally in your body and can emerge under stress. In my case I suffered the emotional consequence of being bullied. Finally, the feared Covid variant Omircron visited me at Christmas. My dreams during the first night of a relitively mild fever consisted of interior images of musically tight figures of cells lining up in my body in an orderly way. On a subliminal level these repeating images mimicked the efficacy of my two jabs and boosters. I was experiencing at a cellular point the arrested effects of the virus so that within a few days I was recovering well. It was however Bornholm’s which I best remember for its extremely high delirious fever. I particularly appreciated the loving care of our family doctor, Dr Horder who sent my urine to the hospital of Tropical diseases for diagnoses and the kind gesture of my mother taking me to a guest house in Broadstairs to recuperate.
After getting Covid, I braced myself to watch documentaries which showed patients in extremis, fighting for their lives. It was much worse than I had feared. The suffering, the sudden decline to death even for vigorously young people, the moment of incubation from which there might be no return and the moment of accepting that death was inevitable. This set me thinking about facing up to the issues around delirious fever and unplanned death as a part of the work. Could there be any hope in such a situation? With this is mind I find a resonance with the hallucinatory visions of Julian of Norwich. She describes a very personal encounter with the numinous during the few days when her fever was so high that she was given the last rites.
Experiences of delirious fever have resonances with acute hospitalised patients in the current pandemic. In Revelations of Love, Julian confronts her own mortality. She talks in great detail about wanting to have a near death experience in order to bring her closer to an understanding of what divinity is.
These difficult experiences hasten an un-expected and often unwanted Dark Night of the Soul. It is a tough spiritual pill for anyone to swallow. A long life, well lived gives a person a measured chance to make their peace with the end. However, in a Netflix documentary I witnessed a young man who had been ventilated and was about to die. The medics decision was taken to wake him, to tell him the situation and allow his parents to say goodbye to him. What an impossibly heart-breaking moment for everyone. Is there any way in which this suffering could lead to a psychic healing and a dawning of insight, illumination and wisdom? Leaving aside religious answers to this question Julian comes up with a positivity that has the potential to comfort everyone whatever their beliefs. The absolute highest conclusion of her visioning is that no matter what happens, all will be well.
Link to a two minute preparatory vocal improvisation made in a chapel in Cyprus by Opera Alchemist 2021 on Youtube
Reference: Convergence; Courage in a Crisis Netflix 2021
Sunday 6 February 2022
On The Numinous: Day 2, Composing Retreat at Aldeburgh
Composing Retreat at The Cosy Nook: Day 2
On The Numinous
It is a good day for composing. Outside the blustery winds are reminiscent of Britten's Peter Grimes being blown into the pub scene by a raging storm " Now the Great Bear....". https://youtu.be/JvExTkWxLlI Peter Pears sings. Mid-morning I grab a moment's break from my score as the sun temporarily comes out and explore the extensive gardens of The Red House. Unexpected discoveries of sculptures in the grass that Britten and Pears collected, enchant me. Wind chimes play energetically. This is a magical day.
View from The Cosy Nook to The Red House
Composing a work based on Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love presents me with many ethical and personal questions. The acceptability of someone having spiritual visions today is tricky when they could just as easily be be regarded as having some form of delusion or narcissistic personality disorder. Yet there are also reports of similar delirium associated with severe life threatening cases of Covid. Julian had a high fever when she had her visions, she could have even been suffering from the Black Death. She was expected to die but miraculously survived. Therefore her story relates to my research of creating works that explore similarities between ancient and current histories. Like so many of the subjects that I choose such as Dante, Jung, Parks, Dickinson, it is the symbology of their stories that interests me. As a composer I am not seeking to present fact but instead to heighten an appreciation of a unique experience. Returning to Julian's case, her visions are fanatical and yet it cannot be denied that her words have and continue to carry a Universal appeal. Julian's spirituality feels upbeat. Personally, I sense that her interpretations could subliminally reach further back in time as far as the great goddess. A clue to her non-patriarchal approach to spirituality is found via the way in which she frequently refers to God as the great mother. Her numinous experience is therefore, made special by its inexplicability. Her work doesn't need to prove anything, instead it is replaced by a wonderment at a precious mystery.
Reeds in the Snape marshes
After lunch with another break in the weather I walk out of Aldeburgh past the golf club towards Snape. There are vast views of estuary water and marshes backlit by sunbeams. The wind in the reeds is soft and hypnotic. Time spent in nature away from my score is invaluable. It is here that I work through my psychic pondering and questions. The heath-like quality of the shoreline reminds me of a similar place at my parents cottage in Sussex. This leads me to think of them profoundly. Even though they are long gone, I start to talk to them, saying how great they were and how I feel that my Mum's depression was a product of society's imbalance toward women and how my Dad did his very best to right this. I walk out of the boggy marshes up a modest hill and it starts to rains. But the sun breaks through dark clouds. I know there will be a rainbow. Did you know that everyones perception of a rainbow is individual? This is to do with our unique optical set up. In my case I saw an outstanding rainbow, even this photo below gives a reasonable impression. For me, symbolically, I had just been talking to my dead parents. As the rainbow intensified against the clouds two white doves flew into view.
Rainbow on the walk between Aldeburgh and Snape
I think of Julian's well known phrase:
All shall be well,
And all shall be well
And all manner of thing shall be well
Dad reflected Julian's viewpoint when our cousin's 18 year old daughter was dying of cancer or even when he faced the end. This I realise is why Julian's message is so powerful and why I am compelled to compose music about it even though it is a complex and sometimes confusing task. I watch the rainbow till it disappears. First one side fades, then the other as though it is drinking in the lost side. It reminds me of my parents swift exits, both with instant heat attacks. The large field now looks dull without a magnificent rainbow, but the memory of it is alive in my imagination: forever magical and numinous.
Saturday 5 February 2022
Composing Retreat at Aldeburgh: Day 1
Composing Retreat at The Cosy Nook in the grounds of The Red House, Aldeburgh
Day 1, 5th February 2022
I hear high strings, tremolando, punctuated by ceremonial bells from the Far East, tasting up the mix like the injection of an exotic herb, perhaps turmeric for its healing taste and smell, also for its glorious orange hue.
She is receiving
The Nook is indeed cosy as its description from the Aldeburgh foundation declares. I can feel it is conceived by an architect of vision. The doors swing on a central axis allowing more free flow and the main room is flanked by two bedrooms to form a modest cross reminiscent of a Celtic origin. It is always warm.
Driving to Aldeburgh from North Norfolk yesterday felt like a pilgrimage to the heart of what it could mean to be an artist: Being alone and reflective, time to think. As I circumnavigated Norwich on the south ring road, I thought of my Dad and his sitting as a Recorder in the crown court. I thought of his humbleness and delight at staying in a little hotel at Horning on the broads. As I set deeper into Suffolk the sun lowered to project magnificent light. Blythburgh church looked stunning but I still felt my usual dusk inner mourning descend. As I navigated my mini through the complex lanes my thoughts turned to Britten himself. I imagined what pleasure he must have felt as he drove through the Scots pines bumping over heath-formed ha ha's. His beloved Red House a symbol of his inner life. I sit down to compose in the Cosy Nook.
She is Revealing
The mission of my residency is to compose a work based on Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love which she created after a debilitating high fever in May 1373. It could have been the Black Death but she survived. There are resonances with Covid and the meaning of the ancient goddess is revived under cover.
I feel somewhat overwhelmed with the task ahead as I want to compose this work in the 13 days given to me. Julian's revelations took place over a few days, perhaps I can make it! There is little to distract me just glimpses of the Red House from most windows, beautifully tended gardens full of silver birch, eucalyptus and snowdrops. The new Britten/Pears red brick archive looms impressively. I take a sunny walk to the seafront and am astounded by The Moot Hall. The wind is high and I stock up at Tescos on the way back but the Nook remains cosy.
The Moot Hall, Aldeburgh
I have sketched five minutes of music today. The original owner Nellie Hudson and her dog Gilda watch over me from their photo. This cosy Nook was built by Britten and Pears specifically for Nellie who was their housekeeper. What a legacy. Now it is night and the wind is lashing around the Cosy Nook but all is well.
Nellie Hudson and Gilda
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