Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon) constitutes the first part of a trilogy of pieces I am composing based on the diaries of the German film director Werner Herzog which he kept during the troubled production of his 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo and later published as the book Conquest of the Useless. The movie itself concerns the doomed efforts of a turn of the century rubber baron to build an opera house in the middle of the Peruvian jungle and the central, iconic image from the movie of a steamship being hauled over a mountain has been somehow translated here into a gigantic glissando, starting in the depths of the orchestra and slowly climbing. I wanted this piece to have all the grandeur and over-the-top emotions of a romantic opera overture and as I began to compose, that wish became more and more literally realised with snatches of Rigoletto writhing in the undegrowth accompanied high above by the “melancholy peeping” of tree-frogs.

(David Fennessy)

The world première of David Fennessy's new orchestral work Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon) will be held on 11 May in Glasgow. Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish SO.

David Fennessy: Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon)
for orchestra | 10’
3 3 3 3 - 4 2 3 1 - Table Guitar, timp, perc(3), pno, str(12 10 8 8 6), frog guiros
world prem. 11/5/2013, Glasgow; BBC Scottish SO, cond. Ilan Volkov

WQXR offers a stream of the Talea Ensemble’s performance of David Fennessy’s 13 Factories. You can stream a recording of the US première, which was given by conductor Eduardo Leandro and the Talea Ensemble on 20 April 2013.

WQXR stream

Happy Birthday David Fennessy!

This Friday, David Fennessy presents what you could call a “staged concert” (to use Heiner Goebbels’s term) at the Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. The concert starts at sunset, and the audience walks for about 10 minutes into the forest adjoining the Schloss, where in the little hut there Sabine Ahrendt will perform Little Bird Barking for violin (or as the composer writes “for violinist and forest sounds”).

“The violinist is not attempting to 'harmonise' with the forest sounds but rather seems like an alien creature transplanted from a different habitat who nevertheless attempts to add their voice to the chorus!”

The audience then returns towards the Schloss and arrives at the Scheune (barn), where Sonia Cromarty will perform The room is the resonator (for cello and electronics) followed by Rest (for violin, cello and electronics). The recorded part was created at the hut mentioned above during Fennessy’s residence at Schloss Solitude last year.

As Fennessy writes: “There is a kind of narrative running throughout the three pieces, including in a way, the walking between them. The resounding question is one of the performers’ ‘voice’, literally and metaphorically, and how it adapts to its surroundings. All three pieces contain extended vocalising from the performers which, I feel, helps to imprint their individual identity onto the performance. In all three cases, the fragile voice emerges from behind the instrumental shield.”

Click the image above for a PDF file of the brochure.

Pass the Spoon is a ‘sort of opera’ composed by David Fennessy in collaboration with visual artist David Shrigley and director Nicholas Bone.

Watch the full video now on the new thespace.org website.

David Fennessy is on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune programme this afternoon talking about Pass the Spoon, his “sort-of opera about cookery” created with visual artist David Shrigley.

Listen live online at around 6pm London time today (Monday 14th).

Pass the Spoon opens at the Tramway in Glasgow on Thursday 17th November.

As the website says:

What can we say about Pass the Spoon?

Well …

It’s a show with actors, music and food.
It’s a bit like an opera, but with vegetables and fruit.
It’s about cooking.

It’s possibly the only show you’ll see this year featuring a dung beetle.

Oh and someone gets eaten. Did we mention that?

There’s also coverage in the Guardian, the Observer and Scotland on Sunday.