Collaborations
Richard Gordon-Smith
‘[I was commissioned by] the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestrato work with Richard Gordon-Smith on Lowlands Away, for soloists, chorus and orchestra. This tells the story of the loss at sea of the composer’s great-grandfather, the Captain of the Thames and Medway barge Cynthia in 1896, and of his last message to his wife, cast into the sea in a bottle and subsequently retrieved and forwarded to her. The message is still in the possession of the family. The opportunity to work within the extended forms of classical music, and yet within the limitations of the composer’s needs (‘Write me a storm’ is one of the strangest requests of my career) has been both exciting and liberating. Though the historical even took place on the opposite side of the country, it is impossible, seeing as I do every day the Mersey at the foot of the hill I live on, not to relate the story of Captain Gentry and his ship to the lives and tragedies of Liverpool’s mariners over the centuries.’
Adrian Henri, in Liverpool Accents, Seven Poets and a City, Liverpool University Press, 1996, p.38.
In 2000, Adrian Henri worked on a series of pastels to illustrate his libretto for Lowlands Away. The poems and accompanying pastels were published by The Old School Press, Bath, in 2001. www.theoldschoolpress.com
Sea Dawn
'sea birds are asleep'
cuckoos rest in alien nests
sleep is on the land.
Faintest fret of sound
shadows silver harmonies
of just-beginning day.
Becalmed, grave counterpoint of wave on wave
dawn ripple of strings
gentle obbligatos
of laver, carrageen,
dulse and kelp
drift unseen
where the bowsprit swings.
(Adrian Henri, from Lowlands Away)
Listen to an excerpt from Lowlands Away below
John McCabe
John McCabe, This town's a corporation full of crooked streets (1969), was an entertainment with texts by Liverpool poets and by children. The 40’ piece for soli speaker, children's chorus, mixed choir and instrumental ensemble (duration: 40'), was commissioned by Madeley College of Education and first performed in 1970 (conducted by Mary Higgs). It is published by Novello.
(C.M.)
This work is primarily for young people; more specifically, for young adults - in its attitudes towards war and morality, and in its moods of sentimentality and humour. The words are drawn from the works of Liverpool poets Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten, and from a collection by Frank Shaw of Liverpool children's rhymes. Himself a Liverpudlian, John McCabe has put a great deal of affection for his native city into the work - most noticeably in the first movement, Liverpool 8, which describes 'this district of beautiful, fading, decaying Georgian terrace houses', with its motley population, dominated by the towering cathedral, and periodically assailed by 'the smell of breweries and engine oil from the ferry boats'.
The second movement is called Domestic Life, and, in the words of the composer, is a 'fun-piece', where the kitchen utensils are revealed to have a life of their own.
Nocturne is the title of the next movement, in which the composer powerfully evokes the atmosphere of 'the midnight hour', magically redolent of the ardour and candour of young lovers, whose shadowy forms at times emerge from, or merge with, the close-knit but delicately scored texture.
Dance of Death is an ironical view of the folly of war. The Dies Irae, with a macabre twist to its tail, introduces and punctuates the bizarre square-dance, which in turn melts into a touchingly beautiful setting for unaccompanied chorus of Sleep Now.
The finale is a kaleidoscopic rough and tumble of nonsense songs, which sweep away the mood of the previous movement with such outrages as 'Poor ould Billy Nitt', or 'One fine September morning, October in July'. The movement and the work culminate in a hymn-like setting, for all the available forces, of 'Non nobis solum, sed toti mundo nati' ('Not only for us, but unto the whole world born'), the motto of the Liverpool Institute, McCabe's old school. This is prevented from becoming too solemn by the later addition of the children's choir, rather like the defiant ghost of Petrouchka, singing the Latin words, but to the tune of 'Billy Nitt', in cunning augmentation.
© 1969 by John Pattinson
Alan Peters & The Lawnmower
Al Peters performed with Adrian Henri on many occasions. In 1988, they recorded The Blues in Rat’s Alley with The Lawnmower, one of Al’s bands. Tracks included original music composed by Peters for Henri’s longer poem sequences, such as Wasteland’ and ‘From the Loveless Motel’.
‘This cassette features Adrian Henri & The Lawnmower playing tracks from 'Love Is' to the 'Wasteland' showing the full spectrum of my late friend's poetic sensitivity and the great sense of fun we had when working on poetry and music collaborations. I firmly believe that Adrian Henri's contribution as an artist and poet have yet to be fully recognised and hope that through the supreme efforts of Catherine Marcangeli this will be rectified.’
Alan Peters taken from: www.groovinrecords.co.uk
Listen to Love Is from ‘The Blues In Rat’s Alley’ below
Listen to Wasteland from ‘The Blues In Rat’s Alley’ below
Stephen Pratt
Stephen Pratt, Harbour (1987)
Stephen Pratt, Lovebytes (2003), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lovebytes was composed between June 2002 and May 2003, although the third song is a re-working of part of a setting of Adrian Henri's Harbour which was first heard in 1987 at a concert celebrating Adrian's work. All three texts were passed to me by their authors to set, in the reverse order in which they appear in the work. I see the set as offering a glimpse of different aspects of love.
In re-composing the third section of Harbour - here as De Profundis - I have attempted to pace and shape the movement more clearly around its (literal) climax.
De Profundis is prefaced by a short interlude which features the oboe d'amore. The plaintive tone of this short movement reflects a personal sadness that Adrian Henri's death meant that I was unable to discuss the reworking of Harbour with him. I am very grateful to Catherine Marcangeli for allowing me to return to this text and use it in Lovebytes.
Much of Lovebytes was written in the beautiful French village of Fontaine Chalendray in the Charente. It was first performed in May 2003 by Patricia Rozario with Ensemble 10:10, conducted by Clark Rundell. In December, 2004, it was nominated in the vocal section for a British Composer Award by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.
Stephen Pratt, http://www.editionhh.co.uk/hh129cat.htm
Andy Roberts
Since the mid ’60s, Andy Roberts has been setting my poems to music: mostly to solo acoustic guitar. He tailors the music very closely to the words and the mood. He's also amazingly good at picking up the rhythms.
It's very hard for poets to write songs because your natural instinct is to make the words do all the work. The really great songs have holes to allow the music through. The poet's instinct is to fill up those spaces. In a song, there's an equivalence of words and music but the poem can exist on its own, without the music. There are other things, like giving the musician room to display what he's got to offer. In that sense, the form of the poem—as it would be read out loud on its own—would be changed; we'd get an instrumental passage somewhere in it.
Adrian Henri in The Argotist magazine, 1996
Listen to 'Don't Look' (words Henri, music Roberts) recorded Bristol 1989
Willy Russell
Life-long friends and collaborators, Willy Russell and Adrian Henri often performed alongside each other. They intertwined their words and music in ‘Gladtown/Daughters of Albion’ during their 1997 Words on the Run tour, also featuring Andy Roberts, Brian Patten and Roger McGough.
Listen to an extract from Gladtown/Daughters of Albion (words Russell and Henri, music Russell). Taken from Willy Russell's CD Hoovering the Moon.