News
Martyn Harry Spanish Premieres
Two works by Dr Martyn Harry are to be premiered this evening, 31 January, by His Majesty´s Sagbutts and Cornetts (pictured left) at the Fundación Butín Concert Hall in Santander, Spain.
Dr Harry will himself be conducting the performances of the new pieces, Houses of Parliament and Customs and Excise, which are also being recorded for delayed broadcast on Spanish national radio. They are being presented in the context of a themed musical ´journey´along the Thames, from Hampden Court to the Palace in Greenwich where Henry VIII lived and his children were born.
Houses of Parliament and Customs and Excise are just the first two of a projected cycle of pieces for His Majesty´s Sagbutts and Cornetts, entitled At His Majesty´s Pleasure, which will be unveiled in the coming calendar year and is to be recorded by Szorfando Records.
Martyn Harry gives further details about the pieces:
TWO PIECES FROM AT HIS MAJESTY´S PLEASURE
Houses of Parliament and Customs and Excise are the first two movements of a larger work that is provisionally entitled At His Majesty’s Pleasure. Each piece in the cycle depicts a department of the Royal Household or a state institution serving the English monarchy five hundred years ago, at a fictitious time when a young child ascends to the throne.
My music examines both the intense efforts made by the Royal Household to ensure that court life carries on as normal; and presents the confused and exploratory perceptions of the child himself, as he begins to encounter such regular features of court life as 'His Majesty’s Horses and Hounds', 'The Royal Mint', 'The Lady Clerk to the Assistant Master (Food)' and – in a tour-de-force for the ensemble – even 'His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts'.
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT [Hooses Parlaymint]
In the late medieval period, the Palace of Westminister was the King’s principal residence. Halfway through the piece the King watches as two Members of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition emerge from the Palace’s chambers.
HIS MAJESTY’S CUSTOMS AND EXCISE [Custums Xcise]
'His Majesty’s Customs and Excise' guarded the borders of the kingdom from smugglers. Its good offices were notoriously open to abuse.