No. 139
The Trusty Servant
Staying Composed
Charles Mauleverer( Q, 95-97; E, 97-02) tells us about his new orchestral recordings, many years in the making.
In many ways, both Div and Winchester absolutely ruined me: I’ m tied to a life of perpetual and deep fascination across a vast range of disciplines, a magnetic pull towards unaffordably beautiful places, and a real love of learning, most of which characteristics are utterly impractical to a prospective employer. Thankfully, I’ ve had the fortune to have had a number of rewarding projects which fulfilled some of these in my career as a composer.
It wasn’ t until I moved back to Winchester in 2015 that the first significant orchestral commissions arrived, including an opportunity to write a symphony. I’ d met an extremely generous Swiss conductor, Jérôme Kuhn, at a recording session in Prague. Jérôme wanted to give a brandnew orchestral recording as a parting gift to a friend, seemed to have taken to my music, and was happy for me to choose a lyrical subject. I was living and working from a small home in St Cross, with a magnificent view of St Catherine’ s Hill and needed no further inspiration.‘ Upon St Catherine’ s Hill’( 2015) used a small number of mathematical operations to determine the harmonic manipulation, ostinato, and minimal techniques, to outline the shape of a place of deep personal importance to so many Wykehamists.
Kuhn’ s Prague Symphonic Ensemble went on to record‘ A Vow’( 2011), written for my brother’ s wedding, and‘ Theme from Stay’, written in 2015 for a high-end short film. The success of these works ultimately led to the commissioning of my first symphony,‘ One Home’. Deciding that the topic of most urgent importance for a first symphony would be that of anthropogenic climate change, I decided to ask someone from every country in the world to send in a message in the predominant indigenous language of that country, with an accompanying photograph, concerning something dear to them that would be profoundly impacted within the next century, without collective global action. Following some wonderful performances in Europe, the work is still awaiting support to reach recorded form( should any readers have a special interest in this topic, I would be over the moon to know).
Having one symphony under my belt prepared the way for an approach from the Government of Jersey to write a largescale work to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice.‘ Two Brothers’ was an almost ideal project. The commission afforded a full 18 months to research and write a symphony about the Great War. I’ d walked the circuit of Winchester’ s War Cloister so many times that the inscription on its walls is etched in my memory to this day. But I knew very little about Jersey’ s role in the First World War, as the more recent and enduring impacts of the Nazi Occupation of the island during WW2 still dominate.
Each movement begins with a chromatically-arranged announcement of that year, which dictates other details such as key and motivic material, so that by the time“ 1-9-1-8” was reached, the interval 1-8 as a perfect 5 th would develop immediately into the“ Last Post” on the orchestral cornet. One ambition, which we managed to pull off at the world première, was to sound as a precise‘ acoustic palindrome’, in which the entire middle movement,“ 1916”, was recorded, that recording reversed, and the reversed recording played alongside the same material moving forward through time. This is for me a metaphor for the circular nature of war, and since completing the piece in 2018, war has indeed returned.
It was 20 years after leaving Winchester that I had the chance finally to create stand-alone orchestral recordings. Scraping together some funds, I was able to spend a full day recording in Bratislava with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, in a communist-era building whose acoustics are legendary. These recordings sit alongside those from Prague, and a brilliant recording opportunity in 2022 completed the set with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow. My first full album,‘ Overture’, featuring‘ Upon St Catherine’ s Hill’ finally arrived in 2023, and was followed the next year with‘ The Jersey Symphonies’, also brilliantly recorded by the RSNO under the baton of Lee Reynolds.
None of this work would have been possible without the immense patience, kindness, and more importantly, inspiration imparted by many Winchester music dons. Among them are Keith Pusey( CoRo, 84-12), at the helm of many superb concerts; Christopher Tolley( CoRo, 79-17), whose musical training and intellectual approach was second to none, imparting a deep respect for Messiaen among others; Nick Salwey’ s( Q, 79-81; B, 82-86; CoRo, 02-) consummate brilliance; Neil Chippington( CoRo, 92-09), Phil Nash( CoRo, 84-14), Julian Smith( CoRo, 53-92), Barbara Fielder, Anne Stow, Tony Ayres( CoRo, 69-09), and so many more. But for me, largely to one Winchester don I owe my career. No pupil at any school could possibly hope for a more inspirational figure than Robert Bottone( CoRo, 70-06), who will forever command my deepest respect and most heartfelt thanks.
Please see the OW Publications section( Page 16) for details of how to purchase‘ Overture’ and‘ The Jersey Symphonies’ online.
8