Here We Sleep for Sinfonietta

Duration: 20:00
Completed: 2011
Instrumentation: 1111/1111/pno, hrp, 2 perc./11111

Program Notes

They said that the service, which was intended to express a kind of English patriotism and unity, was disquieting, even terrifying. With the surviving writings describing the event it is difficult to make out any specifics for sure and so we aren’t sure if William Stedman’s music was performed, although records survive of the commissioning of these works for the occasion on which James I made the English queens “consorts in realm and tomb” by burying Elizabeth I on top of Mary I. Fragments of chamber music for that event were kept together in Westminster Abbey, including an “in nomine” (the final “in nomine” of this composition is a completion of that “in nomine” fragment) by William Stedman, the chamber musician and composer who may be the father of the more famous musician Fabian Stedman. Many of these sketches also appear to be related to the lists of changes and lines that would later become change ringing. The lists are uncharacteristic of the kinds of changes that would eventually become standard change ringing compositions, but perhaps William also created a composition for the bells of Westminster Abbey on that day, for those Westminster bells that were removed in 1971 and replaced with bells that more closely approximate a major scale. Those bygone bells were noted for their solemnity, depth, and jangling deviations from western tuning systems both of today and that time. If these pieces were performed, such musical changes and pitch relations would certainly have been unfamiliar to most of the attendants. The puritan William Ames wrote that he found the music to be of two types, “cacophonous popery” and “popery of unenlightened and defunct musical qualities”, and the service inspired a tract that is important in the development of temperance music that describes the “morally pure qualities” of the tradition. On the other hand, some anonymous others were clearly impressed with the music for the interment of Elizabeth I and wrote that the music “gave the feeling that a powerful host of heaven swirled about the space”. What is known for sure is that while music played and Elizabeth I’s body was uncomfortably lowered on top of Mary I, a loud sound startled those attending and a kind of riot broke out in which many precious pieces of artwork were destroyed and several people died. When the composer Baljinder Sekhon II brought the musical fragments of William Stedman to my attention, I went to study them at the one of the libraries of the William Stedman trust. After I had viewed the documents for some days, the apparently penniless librarian demanded that I compose “a symphony” based on these fragments and events. I told him that I would be happy to take up the idea given a fee that I named, but instead of paying me, the librarian took to hounding me about my activities day in and out, causing trouble and in general scaring me. After certain legal recourses failed, I drafted an agreement in which I would write such a composition if the librarian never came near me again. Of course, many of William’s sketches cannot be deciphered with any certainty, but I was inspired by my encounters with the librarian to make my best guesses and those short bits of material served as a starting point for the rest of Here We Sleep.