Roger Marsh is too
little known as a significant composer.
NMC are all the more to be thanked for
releasing this major work and for having
done so without the acoustic flaws sometimes
associated with the label.
Marsh is one of several
professors at York University and this
work was recorded there over a period
of two years while he completed the
whole cycle. It has little to do with
Schoenberg’s famed settings in which
the composer tackled only 21 of the
whole set of fifty ‘Rondels bergamasques’.
Schoenberg set Otto
Hartleben’s German translations from
the original French - Giraud was Belgian.
He did this, I think, without reading
the texts carefully enough. His priority
in 1912 was to launch Sprechstimme.
Around him Europe was cracking up and
he, as a Jew, wanted to make an expressionist
statement.
We often forget that
Austria-Hungary had been decaying long
before Sarajevo sparked a war. Anti-Semitism
as well as anti-Magyar ideas were rife
and oppressive in Vienna, so if Schoenberg
didn’t show respect for Giraud I think
we can perhaps understand. He was seen
as a minor Belgian poet: shades of ‘famous
Belgian’ jokes.
Roger Marsh gets inside
the poems - dense Symbolist stuff -
as successfully as he penetrates James
Joyce. I should like to see his scholarship
in that area recognised separately from
his Joyce musical settings. ‘Finnegan’s
Wake’ is massively dense and Marsh’s
Joyce writings have solved a few problems
for me … and I’m an Irish resident with
dual nationality.
Alas Marsh’s remarkable
‘Not a Soul but Ourselves’ (1977) from
‘Finnegan’s Wake’ is unavailable after
a brief release on Wergo. I have the
world premiere on tape and when Roger
and Electric Phoenix asked me not to
play it on BBC or RTE radio I was sent
a copy of the Wergo by an EP member
at a silly price.
Marsh’s music needs
hearing because it’s expertly made with
performers and listeners in mind but
it is far more than just expertly put
together. I see Roger Marsh as a very
important composer – although to get
the best out his music one needs some
experience and a sharp ear for precision.
He cannot be ‘pigeon-holed’ and that’s
why we need more.
The older David Bedford
(older by 12 years) is another top-quality
English composer who has a release on
NMC. Both composers have an utterly
amazing insight into literature and
musical education but are ignored at
home.
Trying to explain Marsh’s
double NMC would waste my time and that
of readers. Some music, especially with
a text and narrator, just needs to be
heard. The excellent notes describe
how this essential recording happened.
I would, however, draw
attention to track 17 on CD2 when Marsh
uses chord structures very like those
in Stravinsky’s ‘Symphony of Psalms’.
They are punctuated by drum and bass
activity and then return to the ambivalent
integrity of Stravinsky.
The abiding clarity
of voices against selected instruments
returns in track 28 where Marsh is seemingly
attracted back to late Stravinsky. This
communicates with the sort of tight
spareness beloved of the Old Man in
his swan-song CBS recordings.
Where Marsh really
scores with his extremely precise allocation
of very clear French and English settings
across several ensembles lies in the
lifting of Giraud’s poems from minor
status to what they truly are. The imagery
is well ahead of its time, even including
some rather brutal ideas. He was less
of a fey ‘Symboliste’ than the
mainstream of Valéry, Mallarmé
and Verlaine and far closer to the Surrealists
and Apollinaire. There are linkages
also to Maeterlinck in his mixture of
imagination and references.
This is very much Marsh
territory. He doesn’t like to wander
through perfumed fog so what we hear
is a treat of sheer sound as well as
being an intellectual challenge. This
is a challenge we should accept and
demand more Marsh releases. We should
as also try to get hold of his earlier
recordings from California and the important
‘Not a Soul But Ourselves’ held by the
Polygram empire.
The NMC engineers here
get things just right except for the
‘Chopin’ track which is too quiet -
recorded earlier than the rest. A glitch
of this sort is trivial when the overall
performance and the work itself is so
important.
Value for money is
100% because who knows much about Albert
Giraud except for the asides we read
in relation to Schoenberg’s Hartleben
translations? Here we get the whole
cycle of poems. Marsh has that rare
talent for a composer of being incisively
gifted with complex texts. Avoid the
high prices of ‘imported’ copies and
buy from your local record shop, NMC
or MWI. If you do you will hear important
music and encounter a remarkable set
of poems. These are coupled with quite
brilliant insert notes of a quality
such as we seldom see.
I usually have a whinge
in my reviews but this NMC double has
zipped my cynicism. I have admired Marsh’s
music for many years. I recommend this
release to all who have intellectual
curiosity and who love great music of
our time.
Like David Bedford,
Roger Marsh loves literature and structure.
He also has a rock-solid musical grounding
in a special British tradition which
we are in danger of losing unless great
music of this calibre is actually heard
and not locked away from us.
Buy and enjoy this
marvellous, honest music then see if
you want to hear more. If so, there
are Marsh recordings in existence that
merit liberation. This NMC release is
Marsh in top form but there is much
else recorded and hidden – as with other
very important composers. I hope that
a free and welcoming response to this
disc will go some way towards breaking
the tyranny. All tyranny is ugly but
the corporate sort which produces cultural
deprivation is worse by far.
Just listen, read the
poems on your third hearing and be grateful
that we still have original composers
and firms like NMC to buck the trend.
A sheer feast with
dreams left over. Marsh shows the greatness
of Giraud’s haunting images.
Stephen Hall
Detailed track-listing
CD1
1. Hilliard Ensemble/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part One: 1 Théâtre
2. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 2 Décor
3. Red Byrd/Juice/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part One: 3 Pierrot Dandy
4. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 4 Déconvenue
5. Anna Maria Friman, soprano/John Potter,
tenor/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part One:
5 Lune au lavoir
6. Richard Wistreich, bass/Juice/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 6 La Serenade
de Pierrot
7. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 7 Cuisine
lyrique
8. Juice/Omar Sharhyar, beatbox/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 8 Arlequinade
9. Hilliard Ensemble/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part One: 9 Pierrot polaire
10. Red Byrd/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
One: 10 A Colombine
11. Red Byrd/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
One: 11 Arlequin
12. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 12 Les nuages
13. Hilliard Ensemble/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part One: 13 A mon cousin de Bergame
14. Red Byrd/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
One: 14 Pierrot Voleur
15. Juice/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
One: 15 Spleen
16. Red Byrd/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
One: 16 Ivresse de lune
17. Red Byrd/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
One: 17 Chanson de la potence
18. Linda Hirst, mezzo-soprano/Joe Marsh,
narrator - Part One: 18 Suicide
19. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 19 Papillons
noirs
20. Juice/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
One: 20 Coucher de soleil
21. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 21 Lune
malade
22. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part One: 22 Absinthe
CD 2
1. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 1 Mendiante
de têtes
2. Juice/Naomi Morse, violin/Tim Smedley,
cello/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part Two:
2 Décollation
3. Juice/Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson,
conductor/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
Two: 3 Rouge et blanc
4. Matthew Collins, Junko Matsuda, Simon
Green, Alex Shepherd - piano/Joe Marsh,
narrator - Part Two: 4 Valse de Chopin
5. Juice/Matthew Collins, organ/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 5 L’église
6. Matthew Long, tenor/Ebor Singers/Paul
Gameson, conductor/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part Two: 6 Evocation
7. Ebor Singers/Matthew Collins, organ/Paul
Gameson, conductor/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part Two: 7 Messe rouge
8. Matthew Long, Chris O’Gorman - tenor/Ebor
Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 8 Les croix
9. Linda Hirst, mezzo-soprano/Joe Marsh,
narrator - Part Two: 9 Supplique
10. Juice/Christian Mason, violin/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 10 Violon
de lune
11. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 11 Les cigognes
12. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 12 Nostalgie
13. Matthew Long, tenor/Ebor Singers/Paul
Gameson, conductor/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part Two: 13 Parfums de Bergame
14. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 14 Départ
de Pierrot
15. Red Byrd/Juice/Anna Myatt, soprano/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 15 Pantomime
16. Red Byrd/Juice/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part Two: 16 Brosseur de Lune
17. Juice/Omar Sharhyar, beatbox/Ebor
Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 17 L’alphabet
18. Red Byrd/Joe Marsh, narrator - Part
Two: 18 Blancheurs sacrées
19. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 19 Poussière
rose
20. Red Byrd/Juice/Anna Myatt, soprano/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 20 Parodie
21. Red Byrd/Anna Maria Friman, soprano/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 21 Lune
moqueuse
22. Helena Daffern, solo/Ebor Singers/Paul
Gameson, conductor/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part Two: 22 La Lanterne
23. Red Byrd/Juice/Anna Myatt, soprano/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 23 Pierrot
cruel
24. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 24 Décor
25. Red Byrd/Juice/Joe Marsh, narrator
- Part Two: 25 Le miroir
26. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 26 Souper
sur l’eau
27. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 27 L’escalier
28. Ebor Singers/Paul Gameson, conductor/Joe
Marsh, narrator - Part Two: 28 Cristal
de Bohême
for details
Linda Hirst (mezzo); Joe Marsh (narrator)
