“The familiar prelude to the G major Cello Suite sounding so, so right. Thomas gives the closing Gigue an irresistible swing and finds rare depth and expression in the Allemande. There’s similar magic in Suite No. 3, Bach’s slow Sarabande heart stopping, the double and triple stopping immaculate. You hope he’ll go off and record the remaining four. A multi tracked Thomas completes the album with three Fantasias for Two Viols by Orlando Gibbons, these beautiful, spare works played with elegance and warmth. Absolutely enchanting – do investigate.” – The Arts Desk
Buy ‘JS Banjo’ from Bandcamp here
Past Projects
Martin Speake/Ethan Iverson
ECM artists Speake/Iverson/Thomas join forces with the extraordinary James Maddren.
Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson was a founding member of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP “…Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock.” Iverson also has been in the critically-acclaimed Billy Hart quartet for well over a decade and occasionally performs with an elder statesman like Albert “Tootie” Heath or Ron Carter. For over 15 years Iverson’s website Do the Math has been a repository of musician-to-musician interviews and analysis, surely one reason Time Out New York selected Iverson as one of 25 essential New York jazz icons: “Perhaps NYC’s most thoughtful and passionate student of jazz tradition – the most admirable sort of artist-scholar.”
Martin Speake – alto saxophone
Ethan Iverson – piano
James Maddren – drums
Fred Thomas – double bass
Buy the album on Bandcamp
“Martin Speake is one of the most interesting and rewarding alto saxophonists now playing jazz on any continent.” Thomas Conrad – Jazz Times
“Speake is a strikingly talented improviser with a seemingly bottomless well of inspiration.” Encyclopedia of Popular Music
“Speake’s playing can be as enigmatic as his writing. The lyricism and subtlety of both his written and improvised melodies sometimes unfold so gradually that one needs to take a mental step back to absorb it all” John Kelman, All About Jazz
Monk Spent Youth
Monk Spent Youth is a celebration of the music, the life and the spirit of Thelonious Monk. The original line up formed in 2014 and released their debut recording, “Monk Spent Youth”, in 2019. Buy/Stream on Bandcamp.
Zac Gvirtzman – piano, bass clarinet, organ, toy piano
Ben Davis – cello
Fred Thomas – drums, bass, prepared piano
Produced by Zac Gvirtzman
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Alex Bonney
Artwork by Jim Glover
Design by Harry Yeatman
Thomas Duo
Peter Thomas and Fred Thomas released their father-son “Duo” record in 2015, to celebrate the former’s 70th birthday.
Peter Thomas – violin
Fred Thomas – piano
With Eduardo Vassallo – cello (on tracks 9 & 14)
Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 32 in Bb major, KV 454, Largo – Allegro
Feldman: Piece for violin and piano
Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 12 in G major, K27, Andante poco Adagio
Webern: Four Pieces, Opus 7, 1. Sehr Langsam
Schubert: An den Mond, D.259
Schumann: In der Fremde, Opus 39
Schubert: An Sylvia, D.891
Strauss: Morgen!, Opus 27
Stravinsky: Valse pour les Enfants (arr. Fred Thomas)
Gibbons: Fantasia à 2, No. 1
Mozart: Minuet in D, No. 6, K355 (arr. Fred Thomas)
Schnittke: Suite in the Old Style – Pantomime
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Opus 24, Allegro
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Opus 49, Andante con moto tranquilo
Bach: Sonata in G, BWV 1021, Adagio
Bach: Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein – Partita BWV Ang. II 78, IV (arr. Fred Thomas)
Webern: Four Pieces, Opus 7, 4. Bewegt
Mahler: Rückert-Lieder – Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
Bach: Nun lob’, mein’ Seel’, den Herren (Chorale)
Recorded at The Ruddock Performing Arts Centre, Birmingham, 2015
Engineered, Mixed & Mastered by Alex Bonney
Produced by Fred Thomas
Design by Nuria Torres
Dedicated to the memory of Tony Fisher, Alice Corser & David Corser
Some thoughts on the music and why we chose it
Felix Mendelssohn’s music somehow feels like part of my blood and tissue; there’s a powerful (but sleepy) imprint on my memory of being gently woken on countless mornings by his soaring melodies and naive figurations floating from my Dad’s violin up into my bedroom and inhabiting my half-asleep mind. The Piano Trio Opus 49 included in our program holds a nostalgic place in my heart. I played the cello part when I was 16 and it’s no exaggeration to admit that this experience of duetting in lush counterpoint with the violin was transformative. Mendelssohn’s subtle piano writing style was greatly influenced by Robert Schumann, whose songs Peter grew to love when he was a teenager. I’m sure they helped him cultivate his singing style. But perhaps Schumann influenced my dad in more ways than one: the composer lamented, “You have no idea how often I practically throw money out of the window.”
Despite Peter’s childhood fondness for Schumann, Schumann himself believed Franz Schubert should be “the favourite of youth. He gives what youth desires – an overflowing heart, daring thoughts, and speedy deeds.” Brahms, who insisted that “there is no song of Schubert’s from which one cannot learn something”, may not have approved of choosing just two Schubert songs from his six hundred-plus collection. One easy choice, however, was An Sylvia, which Peter often heard his own father Stanley play by ear on the piano.
When Ludwig van Beethoven died, a distraught Schubert was present as torch-bearer. A year later, on his own death-bed aged just thirty-one, Schubert asked to be buried next to his idol. Both Schubert and Beethoven have been Peter’s staple diet for most of seventy years; his beloved ‘Spring’ Sonata Opus 24, dedicated to Count von Fries, appears here in all its battered glory. And although it’s a tricky piece, it seems Beethoven couldn’t have cared less, inquiring “do you believe that I think of a wretched fiddle when the spirit speaks to me?”
Ironically and perhaps hypocritically, the Musical Courier wrote in 1899 of Richard Strauss, “the man who wrote this outrageously hideous noise no longer deserving of the word music, is either lunatic, or he is rapidly approaching idiocy.” Current opinion is a little kinder; a besotted and proselytizing Glenn Gould did his bit by proclaiming Strauss a greater text-setter than Schubert. Of all his own output, Strauss rated his songs the highest, and they’re not bad for a man who considered himself a “first-class second-rate composer”.
When I asked what he misses about playing in orchestras, Peter promptly replied, “nothing.” Followed sheepishly by, “except Mahler.” I’m not sure what I can add about the song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. It’s too big and too profound. Gustav Mahler passed on a deep sense of spiritualised landscape and the transformation of nature to his musical godchild, Anton von Webern. Some years ago, following in the footsteps of Webern and his own son Peter, my Dad and I made a musical pilgrimage to the Austrian Alps – a kind of lads on tour for aspiring muso-walkers. Between schnitzels we listened to Webern’s complete works. This didn’t take long. Captivated by tiny alpine flowers, Webern was a master of miniature; Mahler, by contrast, dealt in the monumental. “If you think you’re boring your audience, go slower not faster”, he said, advice we’ve followed in the making of this record.
If the prospect of listening to all this music resembles an exhausting schlepp up Mount Schwarzenbergspitzen or a headphone-assisted guided tour of the Habsburg Empire, fear not, help is at hand. Alfred Schnittke’s Pantomime and Igor Stravinsky’s Valse pour les Enfants (“my music is best understood by children and animals”) inject a shot of Slavic irony and Orlando Gibbons’ Fantasia à 2 offers perhaps the most exquisitely balanced exposition of equal two-part writing I can think of: disarmingly simple yet aurally beguiling – a distillation of what it means for two voices to sing together. Then, if you can feel Morton Feldman blow a whispered draft of cold, cleansing New York air though this sticky swamp of Austro-German mush, so much the better. His was a search for music that “just cleans everything away” – breathe deep, there’s more swamp to come.
A word on the order of program. It’s devised not only to juxtapose pieces in flattering ways, but also to suggest links between composers: Webern adored Schubert and orchestrated several of his songs in his youth; Mendelssohn was largely responsible for the mainstream popularisation of Bach in the nineteenth century; Schnittke may well have been thinking of the Alberti bass-lines of Mozart and Beethoven when composing his roguish Suite in the Old Style; and Stravinsky wanted to banish the operas of Strauss to “whichever purgatory punishes triumphant banality” – the temptation to pair them together was just too delicious to resist.
Morton Feldman once mused, “for years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart”. It’s a common complaint that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart remains the most interpretatively challenging composer of all, easy to listen to but uniquely difficult to actualise. Interpreters may spend a lifetime searching for the perfect proportions, the appropriate intensity and pitch, and all this within an extremely focussed sphere of expression – a kind of musical Goldilocks Zone where only Mozart lives. His Sonata No. 12 in G Major, K27 was written when he was eleven years old.
And finally, Johann Sebastian Bach, the old master. My first inkling of his importance was when, aged ten, I was unsuccessfully bribed by Peter to learn his 371 harmonised chorales (my favourite of which concludes this program). Later, upon receiving CDs of Bach’s complete keyboard music from my uncle Ezekiel, I was hooked, in the same way Peter was as a teenager studying with Eli Goren. For so many people Bach’s music means the cosmos. It’s the most transcendent and all-encompassing thing we know. Significantly, all the composers mentioned above seem to have felt the same. Mendelssohn: “The greatest music in the world.” Schumann: “Studying Bach convinces us that we are all numbskulls.” Schubert: “Bach has done everything completely.” Beethoven: “Not brook but sea should be his name.” Mahler: “In Bach the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.” Webern: “Bach composed everything.” Mozart: “Now there is music from which a man can learn something.” And Wagner, whose work it pains me (and relieves many) to exclude: “The most stupendous miracle in all music!”
What’s the relevant common thread linking all these Bach-worshipping composers? For our purposes, it’s their profound significance to us somewhere along the way and the continuity of musical love handed down through a generation. Mendelssohn believed – and I suspect my Dad does too – that music “fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.” In celebration of Peter’s monumental accomplishment of lingering on for seventy years, of everything he has taught me, of the diversity of music and of generous friends’ charitable giving, we hope you will consign these words, in the spirit of old age, to mental oblivion, and take simple pleasure in the sounds within.
Fred Thomas
Lisa Knapp
Mojo ‘Folk Album of The Year’ winner and BBC2 Folk Awards nominee Lisa Knapp’s “grippingly fresh… superb” (fRoots) debut album Wild & Unduanted, was at the forefront of the current folk renaissance in Britain. Her vocals “as strange and stirring as a spring day” (Observer), backed by a curious array of acoustic instruments and sonic delights from the technological age, create a “uniquely timeless sound, raw in emotion and feel.. beautiful” (Youth, Killing Joke, producer) – and a highly anticipated 2nd album release awaits in 2013.
Lisa participated in BBC Electric Proms 2008 for the ‘Tribute to Lal Waterson’ concert where she sang with legendary singer Mike Waterson, and alongside the Waterson/Carthy family and James Yorkston. Lisa has also played numerous times at London’s South Bank Centre; with the likes of Folk Supergroup Bellowhead (Christmas 2007); A Tribute to Sandy Denny in the Royal Festival Hall where she sang with fiddle legend Dave Swarbrick; ‘Close of Play’, a weekend of both traditional music and new music inspired by it, curated by long time heroine of Lisa’s, Shirley Collins, which culminated in a Royal Festival Hall appearance where she performed two songs with Gerry Diver and also sang with Linda Thompson and Shirley Collins. Lisa took part in the last ‘Daughters of Albion’ production singing alongside Lou Rhodes, Kathryn Williams, national treasure Norma Waterson and Bishi. A highlight was the version of ‘Scarborough Fair’ with legendary Martin Carthy and Lou Rhodes. In May 2009 as part of ‘Tune Up’ tour of Scotland Lisa played with the talented singer/songwriter James Yorkston and the Atheletes (Sarah Scutt, Reuben Taylor and Doogie Paul), with whom she also played for the duration. In September 2009 Lisa was commissioned by Sound UK to take part in an intriguing project called Canal Music. This was in collaboration with Electronics artist Leafcutter John and included a series of perfomances along the Grand Union Canal starting in London and finishing in Birmingham. The material for this was entirely written by both Lisa and John and was performed mostly on canal boat ‘Chiswick’. In Autumn 2009 Lisa took part in her first televised recording for BBC 4’s Alternative Christmas Session programme aired in Dec 2009.
Lisa’s new band features Gerry Diver and Pete Flood as well as Fred Thomas on bass and percussion.
“..it’s like opening up a Victorian music box to hear the most beguiling and captivating singing and sounds; an original concept throughout, and utterly disarming… Her song ‘Jack’ is very fine indeed, and if it doesn’t win an award for best new song I’ll eat my May Garland!” – Shirley Collins
“Lisa takes us out of our comfort zone and plants us in a garden of England we didn’t know was there, but it’s one we’d like to explore further. Her singing and arrangements suit the mood perfectly… Enchanting..” – BBC Radio 3, Late Junction
“Hunt the Hare excels with ingenuity and magic and sets Lisa Knapp at the forefront and heart of the English Folk Renaissance, an incredible EP.” – Folk Radio UK
“..Knapp’s unique voice is earthy, elfin and breathlessly mischievous all at once, proving beyond doubt that, whether with self-penned or traditional material, she is an innovator and creative artist par excellence.” – The Living Tradition
Basquiat Strings
Basquiat Strings is a strings-based jazz quartet led by the cellist Ben Davis. Released in 2007, their first album, entitled simply Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford, was one of the 2007 Mercury Prize nominees. The second incarnation of Basquiat Strings now features:
Ben Davis – cello and composition
Seb Rochford – drums
Graeme Stephen – acoustic guitar
Fred Thomas – double bass
Here are some words from Ben Davis on the new project:
“With the completion of the second album, I’d reached a point where I needed to experiment with different instrumentation and approaches to writing. I am still very interested in blending specific sounds, but want to get away from heavily arranged parts so I’ve brought a natural comping instrument, in the form of Graeme Stephen, into the frame. Graeme’s steel string playing combines perfectly with the broad tonal range of the cello and allows the band to play entirely acoustically if needed. Bass player Fred Thomas was brought up in a classical household which reflects in his sensitivity as a jazz musician. His main instrument is the piano but I’ve seen him as a drummer on many occasions! Seb Rochford, of course, has a great sense for the overall sound of a group and adjusts accordingly. Its been a pleasure to play and record with him over the years. The repertoire well include some material from the second album but will mainly be made up of new material. An interpretation of a standard or two will be included. I’m looking forward to touring this band in a double-bill with Jonny Phillips’ stunning band Oriole. We will be starting again on the exhilarating road of developing new sounds.”
Basquiat Strings’ Part Two has just been released.
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Below the Blue Whale
This new duo play improvised compositions using prepared piano – bluetac, rubbers, pegs, coins, plectrums, mallets, and cymbals – filtered through live electronics. Their debut album, ‘Below the Blue Whale’, is out now in digital form on the Loop Collective label. Buy it here or to purchase a hard copy write to Fred Thomas here.
Fred Thomas – prepared piano
Alex Bonney – electronics
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F-IRE Collective
“Music is everywhere. Countless radio stations pump it out 24/7. It sells cars, shampoo, drinks – even political parties. Music is always there to cover up a lull in the conversation; it soothes us on take-off and on landing, and it makes us feel good… or does it? Subconsciously we crave for something that goes much deeper: well-crafted, inspiring music with real emotional meaning.
Thankfully, each new generation is blessed with a few young people who embrace music as an art form. They explore, invent, discuss, rehearse, and live their music. What they create enriches and entertains the audience without patronising it.
The artists in the F-ire Collective will give you depth, inspiration, surprise, and above all, hope.”
– Django Bates
Fred Thomas Jazz Trio
This trio produced sounds that were a synthesis of Fred’s compositions and free improv, exploring those made possible by delving into the bowels of a grand piano – using bluetac, rubbers, pegs, coins, plectrums, mallets, and cymbals – and uniting these discoveries with the exquisite playing of Robin Fincker and Ben Bryant. Their E.P. ‘It’s Time’ came out in 2006 and was Fred Thomas’ first ever release.
Fred Thomas – (prepared) piano
Robin Fincker – clarinet
Ben Bryant – percussion
https://fredthomas.bandcamp.com/album/its-time
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Sister Mary & the Choir Boys
Fred Thomas formed this band with singer Emine Pirhasen back in 2006. Band members included Alexis Nuñez, Ben Moorhouse, Jiri Slavik, Johnny Brierley, Nat Keen & Jim Hart.
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Mor Karbasi
Fred Thomas was Musical Director for Mor Karbasi between 2008 & 2011. He wrote the arrangements for Mor’s album “Daughter of the Spring”, released on Harmonia Mundi, as well as playing piano, bass, percussion and cello on the record and live on tour.
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Fly Agaric
FLY AGARIC draw their inspiration from the Kingdom Fungi, also known as the Mushroom World: these curious growths which appear within a very short space of time, pushing their way up through the undergrowth with great force, containing the heavy metals and elements deposited in the earth that produce the great range of colours found in different mushroom species, and which carry the spores – the vital, reproductive agents. Our vision of Jazz, inasmuch as we are jazz musicians by background (among other things), is a playful one and we plumb its depths of meaning only to have a good laugh at what we find. The impetus to form this band came from a long-standing network of friends to which we belong and was brought to fruition by a sort of ‘disturbing of the ground’ which resulted when we were kindly asked to perform to a large audience in Luxembourg. In this way too, the band is like a mushroom springing from the mycelium, a complex network of fibres, and often growing near footpaths and other byways. The material we play is mostly original and is composed by all members of the group.
Zac Gvi – Sax, Clarinet
Francesc Marco – Piano
Jiri Slavik – Double-bass
Fred Thomas – Percussion, Toys
Their debut album “In Search of Soma” was released in October 2012 on the F-IRE Collective Label. Buy it on iTunes here
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“If you don’t know or haven’t flown with Agaric Airlines (AA) then you should check them out! Fresh, fun and butt kicking when called for. It’s a real pleasure to hear such excellent musicians in their deeper creative moods performing their own compositions.” – Barre Phillips
“… the group occasionally lets rip, but Fly Agaric sees no need to roar when you can whisper, or even mumble suggestively… The dead hand of the jazz solo is simply ignored as a device in favour of group music-making.” – Clive Bell, the WIRE
“An adventure in sound and performance is exactly what the quartet delivers on this powerful, eloquent album.” – Chris Parker
“In Search of Soma demonstrates a confident grip of jazz orthodoxies, but the LP is also eager to move beyond those realms. Fly Agaric understand the distinctive freedom that can be cultivated by scholarly discipline and attentiveness.” – The Skinny
“Chattering percussive effects, honking rumbustiousness, roiling fervour jostle promiscuously with (deceptive) calm and – on one track – the voice (from a speech on employment) of Nicolas Sarkozy to make up a fascinating set of multi-hued pieces, all delivered with extraordinary panache and assurance by a band that is clearly as open-eyed as it is open-eared.” – London Jazz News
“In Search Of Soma is, as its title suggests, an attempt at finding a new way of seeing – a contemporary jazz album that is less about jazz language and technique and much more about sound, concept and imaginative juxtapositions. Here are suggestions that Fly Agaric are a multi-faceted band with feeling and atmosphere in their music to match the pointed deconstructions.” – OMH Music
Shows
No shows booked at the moment.
Slavik/Thomas Duo
Since its foundation in 2007, the Jiri Slavik/Fred Thomas Duo has been exploring the common ground between improvised and contemporary classical music.
Much of this ensemble’s soundworld is produced by experimenting with instrumental techniques, always within an acoustic setting. Their debut album “Repose” was released on the F-IRE Collective label in 2009.
Jiri Slavik – double-bass
Fred Thomas – piano
Buy Repose here or listen to Jiri Slavik’s large ensemble album La Jeunesse here.
“‘Repose’ is the debut CD of Jiri Slavik’s music with the fine pianist Fred Thomas who, together, are in sync with a clear multiple vision of sonic beauty.” – Mark Dresser
“Composition and Improvisation exquisitely merge as these two young masters converse, creating dramatic musical landscapes of extraordinary colour and dynamic contrast. At once intense, primal and highly sophisticated, this is contemporary music at it’s most inspiring best. A visionary work made by great artists with a lot to say.” – Oren Marshall
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The Beguilers
Fred Thomas’ album ‘The Beguilers’ weaves crafted song-writing into the narratives of poems by William Blake, Emily Brontë, William Shakespeare, James Joyce, Walter Savage Landor and Thomas Carew. Drawing on a wonderfully strange repository of musical influences – English folk, Joao Gilberto, Minimalism, the Aka Pigmies, The Beatles, and the English Madrigal School – Fred Thomas’ settings delicately bring the poets’ images and metaphors to life with finely wrought harmonies and luscious melodies. ‘The Beguilers’ features vocals from Ellie Rusbridge and instrumental contributions from Dave Shulman, Liam Byrne, and Malte Hage.
Buy ‘The Beguilers’ here
Music written, arranged and produced by Fred Thomas
Mixed by Fred Thomas & Alex Bonney
Mastered by Jon Astley
Artwork by Ted Allen
Fred Thomas – guitars, keyboards, double bass, gamba, cello percussion
Ellie Rusbridge – vocals
Dave Shulman – clarinets
Liam Byrne – viola da gamba
Malte Hage – electric bass
“a beautiful thing….The Beguilers is absolutely gorgeous” – Guy Garvey, BBC Radio 6
“A beautiful, unique album that dazzlingly recasts these poems in new and unexpected ways” – Nest Collective Hour,Resonance FM
POEMS:
A Dream (William Blake)
Once a dream did weave a shade
O’er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.
Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangled spray,
All heart-broke, I heard her say:
‘Oh my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.’
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, ‘What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?
‘I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle’s hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!’
The Little Boy Lost (William Blake)
‘Father, father, where are you going?
Oh do not walk so fast!
Speak, father, speak to you little boy,
Or else I shall be lost.’
The night was dark, no father was there,
The child was wet with dew;
The mire was deep, and the child did weep,
And away the vapour flew.
Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
Oh! if you felt the pain I feel!
But Oh, who ever felt as I!
No longer could I doubt him true;
All other men may use deceit:
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet.
A Cradle Song (William Blake)
Sleep! sleep! beauty bright,
Dreaming o’er the joys of night;
Sleep! sleep! in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.
Sweet Babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.
As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast
Where thy little heart does rest.
O! the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep.
When thy little heart does wake
Then the dreadful lightnings break,
From thy cheek and from thy eye,
O’er the youthful harvests nigh.
Infant wiles and infant smiles
Heaven and Earth of peace beguiles.
Love to Faults is Always Blind (William Blake)
Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.
Deceit to secrecy confin’d,
Lawful, cautious & refin’d,
To every thing but interest blind,
And forges fetters for the mind.
There souls of men are bought and sold,
And milk-fed Infancy for gold;
And Youth to slaughter-houses led,
And Beauty, for a bit of bread.
Take, O Take Those Lips Away (William Shakespeare)
Take, O take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn!
But my kisses bring again,
Bring again;
Seals of love, but seal’d in vain,
Seal’d in vain!
Ask Me No More (Thomas Carew)
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty’s orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more where those stars ’light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
Rest, Sweet Nymphs (Francis Pilkington)
Rest, sweet nymphs, let golden sleep
Charm thy star brighter eyes,
While my lute the watch doth keep
With pleasing sympathies.
Lulla, lullaby. Lulla, lullaby.
Sleep sweetly, sleep sweetly,
Let nothing affright ye,
In calm contentments lie.
Dream, fair virgins, of delight
And blest Elysian groves,
While the wandring shades of night
Resemble your true loves.
Lulla, lullaby. Lulla, lullaby.
Your kisses, your blisses,
Send them by your wishes,
Although they be not nigh.
Thus, dear damsels, I do give
‘Good night’, and so am gone:
With your hearts’ desires long live,
Still joy, and never moan.
Lulla, lullaby. Lulla, lullaby.
Hath pleased you and eased you,
And sweet slumber seized you,
And now to bed I hie.
Gentle Lady (James Joyce)
Gentle lady, do not sing
Sad songs about the end of love;
Lay aside sadness and sing
How love that passes is enough.
Sing about the long deep sleep
Of lovers that are dead, and how
In the grave all love shall sleep:
Love is aweary now.
The Night Wind (Emily Brontë)
In summer’s mellow midnight,
A cloudless moon shone through
Our open parlour window,
And rose-trees wet with dew.
I sat in silent musing;
The soft wind waved my hair;
It told me heaven was glorious,
And sleeping earth was fair.
I needed not its breathing
To bring such thoughts to me;
But still it whispered lowly,
How dark the woods will be!
“The thick leaves in my murmur
Are rustling like a dream,
And all their myriad voices
Instinct with spirit seem.”
I said, “Go, gentle singer,
Thy wooing voice is kind:
But do not think its music
Has power to reach my mind.
“Play with the scented flower,
The young tree’s supple bough,
And leave my human feelings
In their own course to flow.”
The wanderer would not heed me;
Its kiss grew warmer still.
“O come!” it sighed so sweetly;
“I’ll win thee ‘gainst thy will.
“Were we not friends from childhood?
Have I not loved thee long?
As long as thou, the solemn night,
Whose silence wakes my song.
“And when thy heart is resting
Beneath the church-aisle stone,
I shall have time for mourning,
And thou for being alone.”
Lover’s Tale (James Joyce)
O Sweetheart, hear you
Your lover’s tale;
A man shall have sorrow
When friends him fail.
For he shall know then
Friends be untrue
And a little ashes
Their words come to.
But one unto him
Will softly move
And softly woo him
In ways of love.
His hand is under
Her smooth round breast;
So he who has sorrow
Shall have rest.
Fall, Leaves, Fall (Emily Brontë)
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
F-IRE Klang Codex
A New Series presented by F-IRE Collective and Kammer Klang, curated by Fred Thomas.
Fourteenth century France was a place of radical musical developments, particularly in rhythmic structures, polyphony and notation systems. The greatest testament to this style is the Chantilly Codex, a book of music by Ars Subtilior composers featuring the exquisite mannerist notation of the time. This Codex, with it’s heart-shaped musical scores, staves representing the strings of a harp and riddle canons set out in 33-bar spirals, has become something of an obsession, hugely influencing my own composition. The experimentation of composers such as Solage, Johannes Ciconia and Baude Cordier gave birth to a brief effervescence of richness and complexity, a period of highly idiosyncratic art which left little in the way of posterity. In this respect it seems to me to have the capacity to connect deeply with contemporary artists; this fleeting and isolated style, in leaving no immediate descendants, retains its perennial novelty and remains forever gilded in mystery.
The F-IRE Klang Codex monthly concert series is an attempt to gather my musical thoughts and influences into one beautiful place: a church. Churches are profoundly peaceful spaces in which deep focus and concentration become a little easier, but they are also resonant spaces where, tired of grating PA systems and excessive volume, one can revel in rich, natural, acoustic resonance. The beautiful St. George-in-the-East Church is one of six Hawksmoor Churches in England and houses an organ and a very special Bluthner grand piano. It is also situated by the infamous Ratcliffe Highway, an old Roman Road known in the 19th century as home to, according to one visitor, the “lowest types of humanity of almost every nation”, as well as the opium dens frequented by Oscar Wilde, and was later the site of the historic anti-fascist Cable Street Riots.
In the programming of this concert series my own musical experiences have been combined with those of other F-IRE Collective and Kammer Klang members – in particular Lucy Railton – to compile an unwritten codex that represents our present-day activities in London. The music therein is full of bizarre and inescapable 21st Century contrasts – from Ars Subtilior to Griot music, from Gyorgy Kurtag to Hildegard von Bingen – and certainly has a more nebulous identity than the Chantilly Codex. That is an inexorable fact of our current musical lives, but the hope is that through the haze of eclecticism these strange combinations will be strangely illuminating.
Listen to live recordings from F-IRE Klang Codex below:
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Shows
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