Brussels Sprouts and Christmas Carols

Ahead of the looming excitement of Christmas day we asked our Musically Gifted composers what they're most looking forward to and what they really think about Brussels sprouts... 

All of these composers will have new works premiered by Britten Sinfonia this season, find out how you can get involved on the Musically Gifted website. Watch our Christmas video here. 

Ben Comeau

What’s your favourite Christmas song and why?

Unashamedly highbrow response!  Any of Bach’s Christmas music, especially O Jesulein süß (O Little One Sweet). Poulenc’s four Christmas motets. Messiaen’s Dieu Parmi Nous for organ.

The one you really can’t stand?

I’m usually very eclectic in my tastes, but Christmas really brings out the very worst in pop music. The tropes and cheap tinsel of Christmas hits are so depressing. I could probably enjoy Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody if it were an obscurity, but the Pavlovian response when it starts playing in a club brings out a rare misanthropic streak in me...

Favourite thing about Christmas?

Obviously (some of) the music. And if it ever snows, going out on a long walk.

Your Christmas pet hate?

The pop music...

Brussels sprouts, yes or no?

YES and then some! I could eat barrels of them.

Tom Coult

What’s your favourite Christmas song and why?

12 Days of Christmas – hands down the most structurally innovative of all Christmas songs. It’s a cumulative form with an irregular metre and irregular, additive phrase structure – introductory lines and the ‘partridge in a pear tree’ segment in 4/4, then incrementally adding 3/4 bars, excepting the 5th phrase (‘five gold rings’) which is in 4/4, after which point the melody of the following three phrases alters for each subsequent verse. I’ve done a diagram of the phrases in each verse – italics denote the changed melody after ‘five gold rings’:

AB - ACB - ADCB - AEDCB - AFEDCB - AGFEDCB - AHGFEDCB - AIHGFEDCB - AJIHGFEDCB - AKJIHGFEDCB - ALKJIHGFEDCB - AMLKJIHGFEDCB

The one you really can’t stand?

The Holly and the Ivy. The word setting is awful – all the lines seem to have different numbers of syllables that have to fit into the same tune, and accents fall on strange words. 'Of all the trees that are in the wood’ – very odd.

Favourite thing about Christmas?

The Father Ted Christmas special.

Your Christmas pet hate?

People moaning about Christmas decorations going up in October and November.

Brussels sprouts, yes or no?

No. Yes? Dunno. Was Pierre Boulez not available for this Q&A?

Iain Farrington

What’s your favourite Christmas song and why?

My favourite ‘original’ Christmas work is Britten's Ceremony of Carols: fresh, brilliant, and moving. To think it was composed on board a ship on the Atlantic during World War II makes it even more remarkable. Of the ‘traditional’ carols, I love the original 16th Century Coventry Carol which has such tension to it, unsettling major/minor shifts and uneven bar lengths. Also The First Nowell, especially as arranged by Elgar at the end of his The Starlight Express (nothing to do with Lloyd Webber!)

The one you really can’t stand?

Any of the contemporary pieces that are loaded with saccharine sentimentality, cloying harmony and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth naivety. Like having to eat an extra-large Christmas pudding in one go.

Favourite thing about Christmas?

The positive atmosphere, lights, colour, food and drink; all the best things to get through the darkness of winter.

Christmas pet hate?

Dewy-eyed and cynical TV adverts (Sainsbury’s, this year).

Brussels sprouts, yes or no?

Definitely, and all year round too. However, will we have to change the name if we leave the EU?

Joey Roukens

What’s your favourite Christmas song and why?

Although I don’t have any real favourites, I prefer the ‘classic’ Christian hymns and carols such as Adeste Fideles, Silent Night and Hark the Herald Angels Sing, partly because of their sentimental value – I used to sing these as a child at school and with my mother, and partly because they simply have lovely melodies that are both tender and solemn.

The one you really can’t stand?

Most Christmas pop songs I can’t stand, but if I had to pick one, it would be Last Christmas (by Wham!) which I find the most aggravating Christmas song ever penned. All I want for Christmas is you (Mariah Carey) and Simply having a wonderful Xmas time (Paul McCartney) are pretty terrible too. The thing is, even the great Christmas songs become vexatious just by maddening repetition during the Christmas season.

Favourite thing about Christmas?

Christmas dinner with family!

Your Christmas pet hate?

See question #2 – hellish repetition of the same annoying songs, all the crappy programs and movies on TV, massive consumerism.

Brussels sprouts, yes or no?

Yes!

Nico Muhly

What’s your favourite Christmas song and why?

Well, let’s back up and say that the all-time best is O Come, O Come Emmanuel, because there is nothing more joyful than moving from that minor mode to the expectant major on the word, “Rejoice!"

The one thing you can’t stand?

Everybody losing their mind about Christmas before Advent starts. 

Favourite thing about Christmas?

Having the entire city to myself. Everybody peaces out and I can walk up and down the middle of the street.

Christmas pet hate?

I actually have no idea what this could possibly mean. Do you mean is there a thing my dog hates at Christmas?

Brussels sprouts, yes or no?

Firmly yes! You just have to handle them right. Sometimes raw is the way forward, indeed, and other times, the opposite.  

Meet Clare Finnimore - viola

Clare Finnimore studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where she co-founded the prize-winning Guildhall String Ensemble. Her musical career has included multifarious appearances as a soloist in a variety of festivals, venues and continents. She has been Principal Viola of Britten Sinfonia for the past 12 years, plays regularly with her chamber group, Britten Oboe Quartet, and can be heard on many a cinema soundtrack including Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, and The Hobbit. She has also performed live with such artists as Kylie Minogue, Sting, Bjork and Florence and the Machine.

In this blog post Clare discusses various highlights of her musical career so far (as well as the odd embarrassing moment), her favourite pastimes and super-power of choice.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

When you play music you love with people you love playing with it's always a high!

When are you happiest?

Swimming.

What is your greatest fear?

A world controlled by multi- nationals and the diminishing of the dawn chorus.

What is your earliest musical memory?

Trad Jazz at home and my parents jiving...The Beatles: Rubber Soul....Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice....Holst: The Planets.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?

Camilla Batmanghelidjh- her big heart, determination and tireless work for vulnerable children...and of course her style!

What was your most embarrassing moment?

Asking a very famous singer/songwriter: 'Is this your son?' His reply: 'No, she's my wife.'

What is your most treasured possession?

A goodbye letter from my sister Jan.

What would your super power be?

I would like to be multi-lingual.

If you were an animal what would you be?

A cat in a loving home- what a life of luxury they have! But I would NOT kill birds.

What is your most unappealing habit?

At home, being unnecessarily fussy about recycling. But if everyone did it......

What is your favourite book?

Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Lost London 1870-1945.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Freshly baked almond croissants.

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?

My husband, 2 sons and 2 nephews and my best female friends.

If you could go back in time, where would you go?

To the 60's - I would inject all the giant Elm trees so that they would still be here now.

How do you relax away from the concert platform?

Wine, tapas and friends.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Stepping up as soloist at a few hours notice for a live broadcast.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

To make every day the best you can.

In a nutshell, what is your philosophy?

I saw this recently on a park bench: "Love, be loved and never stop learning."

John Woolrich's piece for viola and orchestra, Ulysses Awakes, was written for Clare, and she will be performing this work with the orchestra on 20 & 21 November in London and Cambridge as part of the musical celebrations of Woolrich's 60th birthday this year. 

She will also be performing as part of our At Lunch 3 concert in February 2015, which will feature a new composition by Ben Comeau and string chamber pieces by Vaughan Williams and Beethoven.

Music, concerts and composing according to Ben Comeau

Ben is a young Cambridge-based composer who won the 2014 Cambridge University Composers’ Workshop. As a result Ben is writing a piece for our 2014-15 At Lunch series which you can support through the Musically Gifted campaign. Ben is in his final year studying music at Girton College, Cambridge, where he divides his time between composition, piano, organ and jazz. He has written and performed two piano concertos, performing the second in venues including Birmingham Symphony Hall and St. Martin's in the Fields.  On organ, he won the inaugural Northern Ireland International Organ Competition, playing part of his own transcription of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. In this blog post Ben discusses his inspirations, what he's listening to currently and what advice he'd offer other young composers;

How would you summarise yourself in one sentence?
I'm not sure it's my place to answer this, but I think it's safe to say I'm curious, scatter-brained, obsessed with a huge variety of different kinds of music, and always seeking to learn new things.

What's your earliest musical memory?
Getting Hanon piano exercises stuck in my head after listening to my dad teaching the piano at home from my bedroom all day.

What do you like most about composing?
To be completely honest: the ego boost after teasing a new sound into the world. And the knowledge that I might be able to affect peoples' thoughts and emotions; my own thoughts and emotions as much as other peoples'.

What inspires you?
Just sound itself – I almost never get inspired to compose by anything extra-musical. I often get inspired after listening to someone else's music though.

When was the last time you experienced writers' block, and how did you move on from it?
I can't exactly remember when the last time was, but I often find simply taking a break or listening to some contrasting music can help. Sometimes I just need a good sleep. I've been fortunate to only ever have short-term writers' block.

What advice would you give to other young composers?
Compose as much as possible; analyse other musical works in lots of depth; analyse your own work – it's easy to feel polarised about your work, either falling in love with it or thinking it's worthless (sometimes changing overnight about the same piece) but it's perhaps better to analyse which elements in the piece make you fall in love with it, and what weaker elements might cause you to temporarily hate it. You can then work on improving the weaker elements.

Which musical instrument do you wish you could play, and why?
I've recently become interested in the saxophone, because of its astonishing variety of timbre. I've been inspired by John Zorn's extended repertoire of weird and wacky squeaking sounds from the instrument; I don't know anything about how to actually produce such sounds. I also wish I were a good singer – I think there's something fundamentally spiritual about the human voice, going to a deeper level than any other form of music making. A central feature of most, if not all, 'primitive' societies was communal chanting, often with a religious purpose. Unfortunately I'm not blessed with a fine voice.

How do you feel about new music and what we're trying to do with Musically Gifted?
New music is obviously inherently experimental, in the very literal sense that it is generally an experiment to see if something will work or not. Some new musical experiments will be failures and will not move anyone, will not stir emotions or have any other use. Other musical experiments will open up vast realms of human emotional experience, move us to tears or open our eyes to an entirely new way of looking at the world.

If “music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent”, then it's interesting how often we are finding new things which have not been expressed or said before, which could not be expressed except through music. I don't believe that most of us have tapped through a tiny fraction of the range of experiences the human brain is capable of, and music almost certainly has far more to say to us than has yet been said. Of course, this all requires a positive attitude towards the idea of experimentation. We must dedicate time and resources to opening up new musical avenues, and there is lots of potential reward for this.

Musically Gifted is a brilliant endeavour which is investing in the search for new forms of human expression and communication.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?
That's a strange concept really. Any kind of music that brings you pleasure pretty much justifies itself, without one needing to feel 'guilty' – I think? I can get really into Queen or Abba, albeit in small doses…

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?
I’m currently starting to explore indie rock – I’m fairly unknowledgeable, but the last thing I listened to was some Grizzly Bear which I enjoyed (mainly for the harmonies/structures; I can't enjoy the vocal style so much). I've also been listening to Stravinsky's Firebird Suite; I've made an organ transcription of the work, and I’m performing it for my final recital-exam at Cambridge University.

The last concert you saw?
I play in far more concerts than I go to see (for better or worse)! The last I played in was Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, in Kettle's Yard, Cambridge. The last I saw was a student piano recital by Sasha Valeri Millwood, in Girton College, Cambridge. He improvised links between the pieces; apparently a common practice in the 18th century. I wonder if this could be revived in the 21st century – I'm a big fan of improvisation.

If you hadn't been a musician, what might have happened?
I can't remember imagining myself to ever be anything other than a musician – but I also have a big interest in philosophy, politics and ethics, with an activist streak. I might have been an environmental campaigner, or gone into academic study of philosophy.

Any plans for the summer?
Travel (not sure where), practice, read!

Ben's new work will be premiered during the At Lunch 3 performances in London, Cambridge and Norwich in February 2015. Find out more here

Support Ben's new work through the Musically Gifted scheme - your chance to buy a gift and create new music. More info here