Swaledale Festival 2012, with added PIRATES.

Stephen Anthony Brown

This is a short one to say that the premiere of composer Michael Brough's "Bacchus and the Pirates" was a success!

Composer Michael Brough, born in Leeds

The second Swaledale Festival for me, and certainly a joyful feast of breathtaking scenery, kind people, a genuine love of unusual and passionate music-making, and all the associations with All Creatures Great And Small in that area. Heck, I grew up looking at those dales. And men with floppy hair and fairisle jumpers thrusting their hands into cows to make them well or bring forth other cows, and tending to little shaggy dogs on rough-hewn tables.

The Festival commissioned Mr. Brough to compose a work for piano, tenor and mezzo, and what did he come up with? Only a 17-minute-long lurid Victorian (I almost wrote 'camp') mini-secular-oratorio! Crazy! Subtitled "Marine Variations for Two Pirates and Piano", The words are by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958). These are the first words I sing:

"Sea-roads plated with pieces of eight that rolled to a heaven by rum made mellow,

Heaved and coloured our barque's black nose where the Lascar sang to a twinkling star,

And the tangled bow-sprit plunged and dipped its point in the west's wild red and yellow,

Till the curved white moon crept out astern like a naked knife from a blue cymar."

Stephen sang heroically and I tried to keep up.

The piano roared, and many in the audience (faces beaming) commented that they'd not heard the piano sound like that during the whole festival.
The concert had to end with duets and we'd run out of ideas. "Oh don't worry, I'll arrange some folk songs," said Stephen. That he did. Those four song arrangements (Soldier, Soldier; The Trees They Grow So High; Golden Slumbers; Oh No John) will have a great future. Zita Syme, my soprano duet partner and also partner of Stephen, was coaxed onto the stage to do Golden Slumbers with Stephen, and everyone was completely enchanted. An unexpected voice is always a good thing in a recital, and when it's as limpid and meltingly gorgous as Zita's, well...it's magic.

Look at the variety of trees behind me...and how country-cottage the building is.

The next day we went and sang at a local Retirement Home as part of the festival's Community Outreach. It was in a small town called Bedale and it was a lovely, lovely place. Covered in climbing flowers, and round the side lovely gardens.

Ate lots of pies and didn't exercise nearly enough to make up for it.

Unexpected gig, unexpected aroma.

On my list of people who ought to be famous but aren't (yet) is a composer called Michael Brough.

Here's a video of me singing one of his songs. I think it's as good as anything Schumann has written...better than any song written by a living composer, and a joy to sing. And there are 80 more from the same source.

Brough is one of those genius-musicians who think in colours, shapes, keys, and look abstracted in company when there's music on, because it's a stronger language for him than speech.

He has a solicitor's office he tires himself out in during the day. You can't pay for a mortgage if you're a composer who is intent on creating pure, meaningful art. And Brough refuses to write for commercial ends, for that tiresome reason so many people of genius have: an inability to compromise. So posterity goes without the symphonies, the string quartets, the oratorios, the sonatas. And wonders why we in the 21st century have such a dearth of those works compared to, say, a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago.

He also plays the organ, and a couple of days ago had an organ recital in Notting Hill, which I was looking forward to. There's no better way to sort out any problems in your head than sitting through an organ recital, even when played by a visceral performer like Michael Brough.

The night before the concert, the organiser frantically rang me up. Richard Carruthers, of Music Chamber. A true supporter of the arts, Mr. Carruthers.

"I can't get hold of Michael. The recital will have to be cancelled...the organ's broken!"

I told him that I have seen Mr. Brough casually walk into a church where they'd not had the organ played in 20 years, claiming it's beyond repair, only for Michael to strip to the waist, grovel about a bit amongst the dust and bat-droppings, and have the thing up and running in ten minutes flat. Also that this is an organist who once was playing a hymn for a wedding when the organ broke at the beginning of the 2nd verse, and while the congregation continued to sing, raced up the spiral staircase, fixed it, and got down the staircase to join them again for the last verse.

"Well, I don't think this can be fixed. It'll either be cancelled, or here's a bright idea, the two of you could do a voice and piano recital! Less than 24 hours' notice...ha ha!"

I tried ringing Michael. No answer. I put my mobile on speakerphone and just kept redialling and having the thing ring until it refused to keep ringing, then I'd start over again. After about half an hour of this, he answered and I told him of the possible change of plans. He hadn't heard the phone because he'd been practising for the recital.

The next day I was almost completely certain I wouldn't have to sing. Michael Brough could fix any organ. I dawdled, looked through some music, and dug out songs that I've done with Michael in the past, but haven't done for a while. Thine Alone, by Victor Herbert. Fair House of Joy by Quilter. French salon songs I recorded back in 2002. Some of Michael's compositions.


A pretty, but silent, organ behind.

But I dressed as an audience member on a chilly day. Ended up running through the park to the railway station, as I'd have been late even as an audience member if I hadn't.
Anyway, not even Michael could mend a disintegrated plastic connector tube to the blower, held together by somebody's duct-tape that came off whenever the organ needed more wind. Michael played three substantial piano pieces and I did three sets of songs. Thine Alone? The voice loved it, and it loved the voice. But the words...my oh my. Is it that long since I've sung this? Seems like yesterday. Funny: I wouldn't have expected to stand up and recite a poem I haven't thought of for six years, but I expect to be able to do it with a song. I sang "In thine eyes enfold me my beloved..." and "let thine arms look fondly into mine". Some in the audience said they hadn't noticed. But when you have it within you to do a perfect job...oh how annoying three missed words is! And it's just plain unprofessional.

Having got that out of the way, the rest was fine, and quite fresh for being spontaneous. I did notice a funny smell, especially when I breathed very deeply for long phrases. Sitting down during Michael's electrifying rendition of a sontata by Issay Dobrowen, I tried to get a cluster of autumnal foliage off the bottom of my shoe. Yes, the leaves were being held there. By something brown. By something in the park I hadn't noticed. Yes, I sang two-thirds of a recital with a good two tablespoons' worth of crap on my shoe.

Later, I went to the Experimental Cocktail Club in Soho and sang with Albert Ball's Flying Aces from 11pm to 2am. The gold dancing shoes from Freed's were clean, and I wore a tight, simple black dress with a large poppy as the only ornament. Introduced a new/old song with the Flying Aces: There's a Long Long Trail a-Winding.