To A Walrus

Welcome

We’re delighted you’ve visited this private information page, which would suggest you’ve also purchased a copy of our album, “To A Walrus” – the brass music of Andrew Powell! Thank you for your interest in the recording and we hope you enjoy the music and messages it shares with the listener.

We wanted to make your purchase a little more special, and so we have created this dedicated information page which can only be reached by those in possession of the special QR code included with each purchase of the album. This area provides you with lots of additional information about the works, as well as a full introduction by John Wallace.

Introduction

John “McTavish” “Walrus” “M. Morse” Wallace writes:

This album of Andrew Powell’s ground-breaking music for solo and ensemble brass is long overdue. It is almost beyond my comprehension that Andrew, born four days after me in 1949, is now 75 years old. He and I go back a very long way – to Garden Hostel, West Road, Cambridge, October 1967, to be precise. We struck up a Celtic Fringe friendship straight away, his Welshness masked slightly by his upbringing in Wimbledon, my Scottishness bare and naked from the coalfields of Fife. From the start Andrew lavished me with the nicknames above, which have stuck right through our long friendship.

Our three years together at King’s College surrounded by a dazzling array of contemporaries who, in short order, went on to run the UK music industry in all its dimensions, were truly formative in shaping our immature identities. And we have continued to evolve together as musical polymaths ever since. Our hunger to assimilate all of those new sounds and experiences and ways of looking at things that bubble up to the surface of our consciousness, through the human genius of successive generations of contemporary composers in all genres, has never diminished.

In our second year at King’s, Andrew and I were split – me to Spalding Hostel with the legendary “Mrs B(rooksbank)” along with the choral scholars (a rowdy bunch and great fun) and he into Market Hostel nearby overlooking Great St Mary’s. This was the year of student sit-ins and storming of the Senate House in Cambridge University, and general 1968 mayhem all over Europe, especially in Paris. I can remember activist meetings at which Andrew and I were present with later friend and colleague at the RCS, Prokofiev scholar Rita McAllister where we were proposing a new revolutionary music curriculum. All of the changes we were “demanding” eventually came to pass through York University music department in the 70’s. Looking back through hindsight, it all seems quite tame now.

The really formative thing, however, to both our futures, during our undergraduate years was the presence at various times in King’s of composers-in-residence Tim Souster and Roger Smalley. These two diverted our attention from student politics and we got stuck into what really mattered – learning to make music by making it. I remember particularly both of us taking part in a performance of Terry Riley’s In C in the attic of the Kings College neo-classical Gibbs Building, where Roger and then Tim ensconced themselves. Almost unwittingly, more by accident than design, Roger and Tim altered the chemistry of composer development in the UK, and germinated the ecology which led to so many mould-breaking composers coming through Kings – from Judith Weir to George Benjamin and Thomas Adès, and many, many more. Within short order, Andrew was performing in the Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall with Roger and Tim’s group, Intermodulation, and I was on tour in Italy with Elgar Howarth and the London Sinfonietta. We had been launched on our quest to stretch the boundaries and reach out to that far horizon way beyond our ken as callow youths.

Andrew’s biography speaks for itself, and I dwell on these early years we spent together to emphasise the spirit of adventure which Andrew and I seem never to have lost and has characterised all of Andrew’s musical encounters subsequently, be they with Steve Harley, Kate Bush or Karlheinz Stockhausen. Andrew has returned to his Welsh roots near Abertawe and I to my Scottish lair in Glasgow. We continue to communicate with one another most days, and when I see the text to “Walrus” or “McTavish” or “M. Morse” I know that my day is going to be enhanced by a bon mot or youtube link to some new dazzling and enthralling 20-year-old composer.

I hope this 75th Anniversary album represents a fitting tribute to my oldest friend who has written this outstanding corpus of music for me. It has truly enhanced my life of music-making and I am eternally grateful. It continues to stretch my mind beyond that far Welsh horizon.

“To A Walrus” – The Recording Session Gallery

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

(Photo credit: Sandy Coffin)

The Works

Ritual

In memoriam Trevor Reginald King RAFVR 426 Squadron died 27.01.1944

This work is written for double brass quintet – each containing the usual 2 trumpets, horn, trombone and tuba, and was commissioned by The Wallace Collection with the aid of funds provided y Ty Cerdd.

Trevor King was the uncle I never met, my mother’s brother, who was a Flight Engineer on 426 squadron’s Lancaster bombers. His plane was shot down over Berlin, and unfortunately only one of the crew managed to bale out before the plane exploded.

The work uses the whole performing space – the players move around the stage in the course of the performance – the first trumpet from group A starts the work at the back of the hall, and moves up by a circuitous route through the audience during the first 2 minutes of the work, whilst the rest of the players start off-stage, then move to three positions (groups of 3) around the back of the stage, then they move to their next positions – the two groups facing each other stage left and stage right, (in a sort of late Renaissance antiphony), when the 1st trumpet eventually reaches his seat. After this the players sit for the majority of the rest of the work, until they march out through the players’ entrance during the coda, to a ritualistic fanfare-like phrase, with the 4 trumpets in unison, which is repeated and varied: the last few notes of the work are played behind the closed door of the performer’s entrance.

Length: 13′ 36″
Double brass quintet: The Wallace Collection, Solstice Brass
Recording venue: Govan & Linthouse Parish Church
Recording year: 2021

Variations Toward A Theme

This work was written in 2000, and first performed by two members of the all-female trumpet group “Bella Tromba” in the Duke’s Hall, London, with live electronics and sound projection by Kirsten Cowie (now Powell), to whom the work is dedicated. For this recording, the trumpets of John Wallace and John Miller were recorded by Kirsten Powell at the recording studio at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, and then edited, with electronics added by Andrew and Kirsten at their home studio, Yr Hen Ysgubor.

I started to write a set of variations, but decided half way through the compositional process to delay the exposition of the theme, unusually, until the end of the work – hence the title. The sub-title _ “For two trumpets without mutes and live electronics” – came about because I realised how unusual it was in a contemporary work to find a piece where no mutes are used on the trumpets: it’s difficult to find any open notes in the scores of Webern, for example!

The electronics were originally based around two Yamaha SPX 990 units, and although I have made patches for both PD and Max (both developed by the people at IRCAM), I decided to go back to basics and use the SPX machines for this recording, so this will be an authentic “period instrument” recording of the work. The electronics mainly consist of different echoes (reverberations), digital delays (repeats) of varying lengths, harmoniser patches (giving different pitches from the ones which are being played) and various types of distortion.

Length: 10′ 24″
Two trumpets: John Wallace, John Miller
Electronics: Andrew Powell, Kirsten Powell
Recording venue: Laidlaw Music Centre, St Andrews | Yr Hen Ysgubor (electronics), Wales
Recording year: 2022

This work was commenced as a 65th birthday present for John Wallace, but as so often happens, it was finished far too late (nearly seven years too late)… The work is, of course, dedicated to John Wallace. It was first performed in 2022 by Bede Williams and John Miller, with the composer (piano and percussion) at the Laidlaw Music Centre at the University of St Andrew’s in Scotland.

The title uses one of the many nicknames bestowed upon John during our time together as undergraduates at King’s College, Cambridge – some by Tim Souster. “The Walrus” was one of them.

The first trumpet part was written for a quarter-tone trumpet – with a fourth valve which lowers the pitch by a quarter-tone. The second player also has some quarter-tones, but very few, and they are all fakeable. The piano part calls upon the pianist to play various percussion instruments as well as the piano – 2 wood blocks, medium and large suspended cymbals, a china cymbal, a gong, tam-tam, finger cymbals, triangle and crotales.

The work basically falls into two main sections – the first is mostly fast, quite virtuosic at times, with a couple of slow interludes. The second section was inspired by the hieratic style of dung-chen playing in Tibetan Buddhist Ritualistic music, with the occasional Celtic twist – and based on the harmonic series of Bb, for which quarter tone and micro-tonal intonation comes into play quite often.

Length: 10′ 24″
Two trumpets: Bede Williams, John Miller
Piano & percussion: Andrew Powell
Recording venue: Laidlaw Music Centre, St Andrews
Recording year: 2022

Plasmogeny II

Plasmogeny II was commissioned by John Wallace in 1998, and first performed by him and the composer at the University of Richmond, Virginia, USA in May 1999. This recording was made in the studio of the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1999. It is written for solo trumpet, live electronics and tape, and is a sister piece to Plasmogeny, written in 1970 for the group “Intermodulation”. The tape part uses many sound sources, various synthesisers, and samples – including many samples recorded in a long session with John and his trumpet in the studio at RAM and electronically modulated: the live electronics enable the sound of the trumpet to be altered, sometimes radically, phrases played by the soloist to be repeated and altered, and also allow the soloist to play in harmony with himself – up to 4 part harmony.

The work is in 3 sections, each of which is twice as fast as, and more melodic and rhythmic than, the previous section: the first concentrates on the low register of the trumpet, the second is more melodic, alternating between “Miles Davis” lyricism and explorations of the harmonic series: the third begins with fast virtuosic exchanges between the trumpet and “Taiko” drums on the tape, utilising John’s extraordinary virtuosity to the full, and builds to a climax with a long sustained melody on the trumpet supported by a brass chorale of Wallace samples over the “Taiko” drums.

The work is dedicated to John Wallace and his wife Liz.

Length: 9′ 42″
Trumpet: John Wallace
Live electronics & tape: Andrew Powell
Recording venue: Royal Academy of Music, London
Recording year: 1999

“Within Those Radiances …”

for brass quintet with live electronics

The title of the work is taken from the Tibetan Book of the Dead: “Within those radiances the natural sound of the Truth will reverberate like a thousand thunders”.

This is one of two works on this CD in which the trumpet writing has been influenced by the hieratic style of Tibetan dung-chen playing, the other being “To a Walrus”. The work is in three sections: the first, slow section is an exploration of the harmonic series of Bb, the second is less harmonically static, incorporating elements from jazz, the third and final section is slow and meditative, again based on the harmonic series of Bb. In the pure harmonic series, the only notes which are “perfectly in tune” according to the tempered scale are the octaves. Even the “perfect” fifth is 2 cents sharp – others vary far more – the seventh harmonic is 31 cents flat, the 11th is 49 cents flat, the 13th 40 cents sharp. So some of the notes in the final section may sound “out of tune” to someone brought up on the well-tempered scale, although they are in tune according to nature. I rather liked the idea of the title’s “natural sound of the Truth” being related to the harmonic series.

The live electronics, once again, utilise mainly three types of effects: various echoes (reverberation), delays and repeats, and harmonisers, which enable one monophonic instrument to play two to four note chords.

“Within Those Radiances…” was first performed by the Wallace Collection in London in December 2000. This slightly revised version was premièred by them in the Chapel of King’s College Cambridge in 2015, during a weekend of concerts – Epiphany Through Music – curated by John and Andrew featuring the work of King’s composers in the 20th & 21st centuries – from Philip Radcliffe via Souster and Smalley and Stephen Cleobury to Thomas Adès and George Benjamin, and featuring The Wallace Collection, Markus Stockhausen, The Philharmonia Orchestra, and King’s College Choir inter alia. The work is dedicated to the people of Tibet in their struggle against Chinese imperialism. (see below for more on Ephiphany Through Music)

Length: 18′ 20″
Brass Quintet: The Wallace Collection
Live Electronics: Yr Hen Ysgubor, Andrew Powell, Kirsten Powell
Recording venue: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
Recording year: 2023

The Composer – Andrew Powell

Website: andrewpowell.com

Andrew Powell was born in Surrey of Welsh parents and educated at King’s College School, Wimbledon and King’s College, Cambridge, where he received a Master’s degree in Music.

Whilst still at school he studied piano with Dr. Malcolm Troup, viola with Noel Long, percussion with James Blades and composition with Cornelius Cardew and David Bedford. Prior to going to Cambridge he attended composition classes with Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti at Darmstadt. Whilst at Cambridge he was a founder member, together with Roger Smalley, Tim Souster and Robin Thompson, of the live electronics group “Intermodulation,” which gave first performances of several works by Stockhausen, as well as performing works by all of its members. He also founded, together with Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson, the legendary progressive rock group “Henry Cow”, and performed with Nick Drake.

His first professional engagement after leaving Cambridge was as a soloist at the “Proms” at the Royal Albert Hall, London, playing Terry Riley’s “Keyboard Studies”. He subsequently worked with several orchestras, including Covent Garden, LSO, LPO, BBC Welsh and, mainly, the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Pierre Boulez. He also worked as a session player, as well as founding the group “Come to the Edge” with Robin Thompson and Morris Pert, which performed regularly with the Japanese percussion virtuoso Stomu Yamash’ta.

His extensive work as a arranger in the rock field includes artists such as Cockney Rebel (Sebastian, Death Trip, Tumbling Down), Donovan, Leo Sayer (One Man Band), John Miles (Rebel, Music), Al Stewart (Modern Times, Year of the Cat, Time Passages, et al.), Chris Rea, Peter Hoffman, Racoon, Mick Fleetwood, and David Gilmour.

As a producer he has worked with Kate Bush (her first two albums) (Wuthering Heights, The Man With the Child in his Eyes, Wow), Chris de Burgh (Crusader), Kansas, Elaine Paige, Judy Collins, Tim Rice, André Heller and Berdien Stenberg and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

He worked on all but one of the Alan Parsons Project records as arranger, conductor, occasional keyboard player and composer.

He has scored several films: Ladyhawke (Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, dir. Richard Donner ) which won an honours nomination for best score from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, Rocket Gibraltar (Burt Lancaster, Macauley Culkin, dir. Dan Petrie,) Closed Circuit (Film 4,) and has contributed music to other films, such as Janice (Joseph Strick,) The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Richard Dreyfuss, dir. Ted Kotcheff,) Caravan to Vaccares, Ice Dance, as well as many T.V. programmes and series both in the U.K. and in Germany, France, Scandinavia and America.

He has co-written songs with Al Stewart, Alan Parsons, David Paton, Stuart Elliott, Menna Elfyn and Tim Rice.

His catalogue of concert music includes several works written for the group “Intermodulation”, such as Plasmogeny, The Old Pavilion and Terilament.

Dorian Terilament and Cloudburst were written for Stomu Yamash’ta and “Come to the Edge” in 1971 and 1972.
His Suite for Brass Quintet with Piano was commissioned, and first performed, by Equale Brass with the composer at the piano in 1986 at the University of Wales, Cardiff.
His work Falstaff for brass band, commissioned by Peter Bassano, was premièred at the Cité de la Musique in Paris in July 1998 by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band conducted by Bassano, and has since received many performances in the U.K.
Plasmogeny II for trumpet, live electronics and tape, was written for John Wallace and first performed by him and the composer at the University of Richmond, Virginia for the International Trumpeter’s Guild in May 1999, and was subsequently recorded by Wallace and Powell for the “Deux-Elles” label.
“Within Those Radiances…” was written for the Wallace Collection and first performed by them in London in December 2000, a revised version was premièred by the same performers in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge in October 2015.

Other commissions include:

Concerto Melyn Coch, commissioned by James Watson and the Parc & Dare Band, and first performed by them in June 2001,
Fish Throw Stones, written for the LCO,

Tair Cerdd Sanctaidd, settings of poems by William Williams, Gwenallt, & Dafydd ap Gwilym, for baritone, harp, male voice choir & brass band, was commissioned by the Parc & Dare Band and first performed by them in June 2006 with Gareth Rhys-Davies, Catrin Finch and “Only Men Aloud”.

His Variations Towards a Theme for two trumpets & live electronics was premièred in London in September 2006 by “Bella Tromba”.

His work Living Stones for choir, brass & organ received its first performance in St. David’s Cathedral in October 2007.

Glasiad y Dydd Dros Ben Dinas, for cello and harp, was premiered at the City of London Festival in March 2008 by Nia Harries and Claire Jones.

Preiddiau’r Cymry (text – Menna Elfyn) for soprano flute and clarinet, was premiered in April 2008 in Cardiff, Living Stones Fanfare in July 2008 at St. David’s Hall Cardiff.

Caban Coed (text Menna Elfyn) was premiered on S4C in May 2009.

The cantata Y Dyn Unig, again co-written with the Welsh poet Menna Elfyn, about the “Red Lady of Paviland” was premiered in April 2010 in Carmarthen.

Will Etienne and Isabeau never meet? was premiered in November 2010 at the KKL Konzertsaal, Lucerne, by the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra/Ludwig Wicki.

Points upon a Canvas, for large orchestra, was performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in the Millennium Centre, Cardiff in February 2011,

Pied Beauty (text Gerard Manley Hopkins) for a cappella mixed choir was first performed by the choir of St Marylebone Church London/Stephen Grahl in March 2013.

Epiphany Through Music

Andrew and John Wallace curated a long weekend of concerts in King’s College Chapel in 2015 – Epiphany Through Music – featuring works by King’s composers such as Philip Radcliffe, Stephen Causton, Robin Holloway, Judith Weir, George Benjamin, Thomas Adès, Roger Smalley, Stephen Cleobury, Tim Souster, and Andrew Powell.

A small gallery of photographs from the event:

The Wallace collection commissioned a new work for double brass quintet called “Ritual”, with funds provided by Ty Cerdd in Cardiff – this was first performed by the Wallace Collection together with Stockholm Chamber Brass in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2019.

“To a Walrus”, dedicated to John Wallace for his 65th birthday, (but delivered 7 years late…) for two trumpets and a pianist who also plays percussion, was first performed at the new Laidlaw Music Centre at St Andrew’s university in February 2022 by Bede Williams and John Miller with the composer at the piano, and recorded by them the following day, for this CD.

He is currently writing a piece for contra-bassoon and live electronics, another work for solo viola and live electronics, and a series of settings for mixed choir of several of the Psalms – in Welsh.

Andrew has conducted orchestras and ensembles all over the world, including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the LPO, the LCO, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Wellington Symphony Orchestra, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, the Münchener Kammeroper, the Black Dyke Mills and Grimethorpe Colliery Bands, and The Wallace Collection.

The Wallace Collection

Website: TheWallaceCollection.world | Shop: The WallaceCollectionShop.world

The Wallace Collection exists to promote the diverse world of brass music. We aim to inspire, entertain, develop, educate and innovate. Equally at home in the music of our own times as well as in the great heritage of brass music stretching back through history, we are passionate about working with young people, the future of our music.

The Wallace Collection performs in many contexts and locations. Recent events range from Steve Harley and Cockney Rebels in the Glasgow Concert Hall to the Epiphany Festival in Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, which we organised with Stephen Cleobury, Markus Stockhausen, London Voices, George Benjamin, Judith Weir and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Festival projects include two first performances of works for brass band and brass quintet: the semi-staged De Profundis at the East Neuk Festival with actor Maureen Beattie; and Jay Capperauld’s As Above, So Below at the Cumnock Tryst. Memorable performances have taken place at the Mineworkers’ Open Brass Band Championships at Butlin’s Resort, Skegness, the British Brass Band Championships at Cheltenham Racecourse, the Fringe of Gold festival in St Andrews and the Three Palaces Festival in Malta. Future events include performances in New York, Dublin, Essen and Scotland’s Highlands and Islands.

The Wallace Collection is currently ensemble-in-residence at the University of St Andrews, where it is a delivery partner for StAMP (St Andrews Music Participation), the major outreach project of the Laidlaw Music Centre. This extensive project encompasses a performance programme playing the canonic repertory of brass from the sixteenth century to the present day and a Discovering Brass educational programme involving collaboration with Fife local authority primary schools and community brass bands.