Sky Rhythms - song writing, the South Downs, and a voice from the Mass Observation Archive

South Downs Songbook and ‘Sky Rhythms’

Artistic responses to the area known as the South Downs National Park go back hundreds of years. For example, the area is associated with Sussex folk song, rich traditions in poetry and paintings by Ravilious. I had the idea that art’s role in mediating the relationship between people and landscape could also be marked through contemporary songs. I wanted to explore this possibility using an ensemble that mixes classical and electric instruments and effects. So I came up with this combination: mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, keyboard, electric guitar and cello.

Thanks to Arts Council England funding, I commissioned four x 5 minute songs for this hybrid ensemble inspired by South Downs’ landscapes from four professional UK composers: Rowland Sutherland, Shirley J Thompson, Evelyn Ficarra and Ed Hughes. This resulted in a 20 minute songbook which I and the Orchestra of Sound and Light toured to Hastings Academy, BHASVIC’s Theatre, East Sussex Academy of Music’s Theatre and Sussex University’s Attenborough Centre.

At the same time we delivered supplementary open access digital materials to (a) inspire others to create (b) ensure wider reach of R&D results (c) provide platform for effective future expansion in a bigger project. These are freely accessible to all via: https://www.orchsoundlight.org/southdownssongbook.

Live recordings of four pro works, and many student songs and compositions, along with finalised digital resources, are now on the same website.

I was happy that each composition occupied its own aesthetic space, but that all four were connected through the shared unusual instrumentation. Each composition had social and political as well as aesthetic significance, due to the choice of texts. In my own case I adapted a text by a resident of Felpham, near Bognor Regis, Marion Robinson, from her ‘day survey’ completed on 12 July 1937. This came from a new partner, the Mass Observation Archive, whose directors (Fiona Courage and Jane Harvell) were very encouraging. For me this opened up a new way of thinking dramatically about witness material – and encouraged me to develop a musical language that could move from the everyday (ordinary concerns) to the sublime (speculation on the link between art and landscape).

Marion Robinson was a resident near Felpham, West Sussex, in the 1930s. Marion writes about everyday life, her political views and the way in which proximity to the South Downs raises her spirits. She also mentions the fact that William Blake lived in Felpham (in 1800-1803) and speculates that certain visual rhythms in his work from that period were influenced by the unique and beautiful effects of light and cloud over the Downs.

The curving landscape is suggested in the gentle form of the basic motifs. Marion’s quite sparky personality is reflected in the rhythmic and sometimes angular vocal line. I particularly enjoyed setting the words ‘The town is inhabited by get rich quick bourgeoisie, who all let their bungalows in summer to come and go visitors in shorts, beach-slacks, sunbathing garments...’. In the inner, instrumental section, I explored some of the colours afforded by reverb on the delicate electric guitar chords and the use of a loop pedal on the bass clarinet, to produce a sense of a mysterious or sublime landscape. This is part of a gradual transition in the song from everyday concerns to the lyrical and uplifting qualities of the south downs, especially the skylines, that raise Marion’s spirits. She argues that William Blake was probably also inspired by the skies above the downs in his paintings, in various ways, including in their rhythmic composition. This transition is completed with a brief quote from a poem that Blake wrote while living in Felpham, which imagines the ‘ladder of Angels’ descending towards his cottage, completing his sense of bliss. The setting at this point is gently flowing, diatonic and delicately scored, allowing the colours of flute, clarinet and electric guitar to be gently balanced.

Listen to the first performance of Sky Rhythms here.

A video recording of the whole concert, and further information about the South Downs Songbook, are here.