Confluence

Silver Messenger - Sounding the Stour

This was a large scale work by Karen Wimhurst, lasting 75 minutes and including a diversity of performers, all of whom were drawn together by Karen - from a specially formed small chamber orchestra, to a local wind band, a choir formed in Christchurch by Helen Porter, a percussion ensemble and a group from a local school, as well as a soprano, vocal and instrumental soloists, the spectacular organ of Christchurch priory, the Priory choristers and recorded tape all to be conducted by Howard Nelson (formerly of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta).

The work had a long and often difficult gestation. The piece Karen had originally envisaged did not involve as many local groups as she would have liked, so the work was expanded to include them. The instrumental core was a twelve-piece ensemble featuring professional musicians we had worked with during Confluence, mixed with new and student players. Unfortunately not all of the student players proved reliable, and there were several twelfth-hour drop-outs which prompted frantic searching for replacements.

Karen worked with James Crowden to set his libretto to music. She says of the experience: "James and I spent two intensive weeks trying out ideas together. Our brief was to create a piece which follows the Stour from source to mouth, encapsulating a sense of the river as a whole.

During these two weeks James literally worked in one room, brought the poetry hot off the press to the room next door where I immediately set to work and produced a musical sketch from the poetry, selecting appropriate passages, editing and then passing it back to him in musical form. These two weeks allowed the bulk of the libretto to be looked over, thought about and an artistic relationship to be developed.

One of the issues in setting words is that great economy is required on behalf of the poet and so it is crucial for the writer to get a sense of this rather foreign, musical medium As James' poetry, however is very image based, it's directness has a very musical quality and lends itself to being orchestrated.

During this period we also spent time in Stourhead and in Christchurch, the two ends of the valley which James is less familiar with. Having been a shepherd in the area he has a very strong connection with the landscape and river. The resulting piece has been a sort of poetic meditation on the river starting from a secret underground ocean, the aquifer and gathering pace down to the sea. There is a sense of the power of the river, the mastery of any river to sculpt its landscape and provide an underlying metaphor for those living in its catchment. Hence even in the encroaching sprawl of the city, commuters and city life are seen as shoals of motorised fish returning to daily feeding grounds in the city. Although the piece travels downstream the refrain 'look at the stream and you will see the source, look at the source and you will see the ocean' gives a place to the endless repetition of the water cycle and the intimate connection which draws people together within the catchment of the Stour valley.

Working on the final section of the piece in which 'heaven's Golden Salmon' comes into focus, swimming in the wind on Christchurch Priory coincided with a newspaper article looking at the tragic decline of the sea salmon in rivers across Europe.

This threw me back to an early conversation with James about this amazing fish, their ability to swim off into wide ocean but eventually returning to the very patch of gravel where they were spawned. So, although the salmon only appears at the end of the piece, this circular movement, flowing out to the ocean, returning to the source, has been an important dynamic in the piece.

One of the great difficulties about being asked to write a piece which sums up the Stour at the end of Confluence is that, having been on the banks of the Stour now for three years, the complexity of the river, the communities alongside it, each deserves a work in itself, so how is it possible to get it all in?

However, there is a sense in which one droplet of water at the source contains the river and the eventual journey to the sea. So the work begins with Aquifer, the unseen ocean under the earth and ends with the open air ocean with the journey between them being the water cycle round and round. I'd also been thinking about the musical community which had grown up around Confluence, the developing trips to play music, the Stour as the route, people flowing back and forth.

Within this piece I also wanted to portray the power and reach of the Stour, this goddess in our midst which has sustained this community through the centuries. During my time in Confluence I've experienced the river as my swimming dive, a place to renew myself, to walk beside. But also, I have found myself looking across flood plains as far as the eye can see, packing up precious belongings to the upstairs of the house, my back garden filled with river. So it has been a discovery of the muscle of the river, glorious in flex and sinew as well as a haven of rippled tranquillity and restoration. Hence, some of the music is involved, loud and rhythmic representing the never ending complexity of flow and force beyond our control. When the river floods we wait in abeyance.

During the development of the piece, the large number of people to involve, as well as the setting of the Priory itself has inspired a work which plays on the possibility of coordinating music from different places in the building. It's at times a sort of Charles Ives exploration of acoustics.

I also had some help from young people in Christchurch, particularly in developing a section where river wild fowl mingle with encroaching suburbia, the 'internet breeding ground' of a commuting life-style, 'shoals of traffic' swimming down the highway".

Karen held a one-day workshop with the Dorset Youth Percussion Ensemble (DYPE). Led by Ron Vint (who has worked with Confluence as part of Dressing the Stone, and the Sturminster Newton schools composing project), this is a group of twelve teenaged percussionists from throughout Dorset, who have been drawn together by the Dorset Music Service.

In the workshop, Karen introduced the group to the ideas and music being developed for the Christchurch Priory concert. This was developed during the day, and was subsequently scored for inclusion in the final concert.

In addition to the many workshops which Karen initiated with local groups, the Priory kindly allowed us to use the building for rehearsals each evening in the week before the concert, and further rehearsals were going on during the day in different places around town for ensemble, choirs and groups.

Karen devised one percussion piece in workshop with Grange School in Christchurch. The young children from Grange School formed a group with Karen called River Reaction, making their own percussion instruments from car hub caps to illustrate the 'shoals of traffic'. This idea was reinforced by further sound collages prepared at the Lighthouse Project Centre for young people.

For the Dorset Youth Percussion Ensemble Karen wrote and developed a variety of inputs. DYPE are a group of teenagers who have come together through Dorset Music Services, and who give percussion recitals of a high quality. The Christchurch Wind Band, another Dorset Music Service ensemble of over forty players aged from 8 to 80, performed an astonishing part of the work in which they engaged in 'call and response' with the Confluence ensemble and DYPE across the length of the Priory.

The centrepiece of the work focussed around a significant choral element derived from James Crowden's libretto. Helen Porter had started work in early April to bring together a new choir in Christchurch especially to sing the new pieces. Thanks to her efforts, over sixty people performed in the final choir, and these were augmented by members of Shreen Harmony, the Otter choir and the Candlelight Singers.

Adding a further dimension to the work were four solo singers. Frances Lynch led the group; an internationally acclaimed soprano with a distinguished background in experimental singing, Frances had previously worked with Confluence as the reddle-woman in Karen's music theatre composition Dressing the Stone, as well as working with us on a composing project at Sturminster Newton High School. Echoing Frances' role was Belinda Evans, the rising young singer who had made such an impression with audiences at the performances of Otter in Wimborne and Shaftesbury. Also giving excellent solo performances were Phillippa Forrest from the Otter choir, and Helen Porter.

A CD is available of Silver Messenger live at Christchurch Priory in 2001. Look at our RIVERS, RHYNES AND RUNNING BROOKS publications for more information.