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.
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