CV|Workshop|'Performance'|performance notes|
Christopher
Mayo - Statement
My
initial reactions to Tatton Park were concerned with the passage
of time especially as manifested in the relationship between the
parklands and the mansion. The park is an ideal and timeless location,
where space and landscape take the foreground. This is in stark
contrast to the carefully preserved history of the Mansion, a building
which operates very strictly within the notion of historical time
and projects its comparatively limited space through the various
eras of the building’s existence. For me, the interaction
between the timeless nature of the park and the historical nature
of the mansion was interesting not only in its own right, but also
in the way it represents the interaction between natural and human
history on a manageable scale.
However,
in the end, the inspiration I drew from Tatton was much more modest
in scope. The grand, abstract ideas which had initially drawn me
to the project seemed altogether less important after I had spent
some time getting to know the grounds. Once here, I was far more
engaged by the interaction between sun and shadows in trees overlooking
Tatton Mere - the rapid progression of the clouds as storms rolled
in over the horizon and disappeared again just as quickly –
the contradictory transparency of the hedge maze without its leaves.
It was in these smaller-scale observations – the minutiae
of Tatton Park – that I found the inspiration for my final
composition.
The
piece “Tatton Park” is scored for an unusual
combination of instruments. I wanted to highlight the contrasting
light and dark elements of Tatton and chose a collection of instruments
that were either very bright and metallic or extremely dark and
earthy. This created a sonic environment with no middle ground;
sounds are either bright or mellow and interact without ever overlapping.
I wanted to create a sound world with sharp edges, reminiscent of
the line between sun and shadow under a progressing cloud. The bright
instruments are two metal plates, two toy pianos, triangle, autoharp
and twelve-string guitar. The dark instruments are clarinet, violin
and reed organ.
External
to the influence from Tatton Park, the work was inspired to a certain
degree by an aesthetic of musical amateurism. It is written for
a collection of toy instruments (the toy pianos and triangle), found
instruments (the metal plates) and amateur instruments (the autoharp
and reed organ) alongside more traditional instruments (clarinet,
violin and guitar). Even the more traditional instruments have simple,
non-virtuosic parts – the twelve-string guitar is played entirely
on open strings by the violinist. This evokes a participatory, almost
folk characteristic in the work that I felt was suitable to the
inspiration.
The
work was premiered by the Camberwell Composers Collective on 26th
July 2007 at Tatton Park. See photographs below.
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