back at the drawing board with stravinsky and ramuz

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

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Getting my hand in here re a revamp of images I made originally for a concert of The Soldier’s Tale in Washington DC last Spring. Conductor James Slater and I have new ideas for the Mid Wales Chamber Orchestra performance at this years Hay Festival of Literature, and come April it’ll be all stops out as I race to complete the revisions and additions ready for May 28th. My copy of the Ramuz libretto is full of pencilled notes for new maquettes, together with places where we can place more emphasis on the geographical settings. But right now I’m re-familiarising myself with the characters, filling a little spiral-bound workbook with fast sketches.

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stravinsky’s the soldier’s tale at the 2013 hay festival

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

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This year sees the emergence of The Mare’s Tale as a newly commissioned chamber-work for the the Mid Wales Chamber Orchestra, and there’s to be a performance too by MWCO of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale at the Hay Festival, accompanied by projected images of maquettes made by me. Artloggers may recall that I worked on a performance of The Soldier’s Tale in Washington DC last year, and the Hay gig with the Mid Wales Chamber Orchestra is to be a re-worked and much supplemented version of that.

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The performance will be on May 28th, and I’ll be posting more details about it when I begin working on the new images next month.

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the tail of the tale

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

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Narrator

You must not seek to add

to what you have, what you once had;

You have no right to share

What you are with what you were.

No one can have it all,

That is forbidden.

You must learn to choose between.

One happy thing is every happy thing:

Two, is as if they had never been.

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Reprise of the “Choral.”

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“I have everything,” he thinks. “I always will

Have everything,” he thinks. But one day she,

She says:

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“I know so little about you still,

Tell me about yourself, come on, tell me!”

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“Well it all started a long, long time ago.

There was a cottage I used to share

With my mother – I was a soldier then you know –

Far, far away; I’ve almost forgotten where.”

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“Suppose, suppose we went there!”

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“No,

It is forbidden.” “Suppose we go –

We’d be back before we were missed,

No one would ever know!’

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She looks at him, and smiles and says:

‘You want to, I can see you do,

It isn’t much to ask of you,

Say yes… say yes… say yes…

Why not, you want to, I can see

You do.” He says: Come over here to me.”

“Not until you say yes…”

And so he thinks, “If we did go

Perhaps this time my mother will know me,

Why not? Just to pay a call,

And she could come and live with us –

“Then I should really have it all.”

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They’re on their way, they’re nearly there,

A scent he knows hangs in the air.

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He has gone on ahead to find

The frontier. She is a little way behind.

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He calls her, he turns back, then changes his mind.

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The Devil appears in front of him, and he has the Soldier’s violin.

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Igor Stravinsky’s L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (THE SOLDIER’S TALE)

Die Vereinigte Kirche (The United Church)

1920 G Street NW, Washington, D.C.

March 23rd

Prince William Symphony Players

De’Andre Anderson, narrator / David Montgomery, conductor

World Premiere showing of The Soldier’s Tale images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

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head to head

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Battling it out!

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Igor Stravinsky’s L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (THE SOLDIER’S TALE)

Die Vereinigte Kirche (The United Church)

1920 G Street NW, Washington, D.C.

March 23rd

Prince William Symphony Players

De’Andre Anderson, narrator / David Montgomery, conductor

World Premiere showing of The Soldier’s Tale images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

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the soldier and his fiddle

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Music: ‘Marching Song’

Narrator

(during the music)

Down a hot and dusty road

Tramps a soldier with his load.

Ten days’ leave he has to spend,

Will his journey never end?

Marching home, marching on his way

Marching, marching all the day

Soon he will be home to stay.

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Phew… this isn’t a bad sort of spot…

Join the Army…! I’ve had me lot…

Always on trek, not a penny to bless…

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‘Strewth, my kit’s in a hell of a mess!

Where’s my St. Joseph? He looks in his pack

For a lucky medallion he has with the face of his namesake, Saint Joseph,

engraved on the back.

Good, there we are! He starts rummaging,

Brings up some packages tied up with string,

Brings up cartridges – rummages on –

Here’s a mirror with most of the silvering gone,

Where’s her picture? That mustn’t be missed

The picture his girl-friend gave him the day he went off to enlist,

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Ah, here it is! And right in the middle –

He brings out – an old brown fiddle.

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It didn’t cost much, the tones not rich,

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You have to keep screwing it up to pitch…

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Igor Stravinsky’s L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (THE SOLDIER’S TALE)

Die Vereinigte Kirche (The United Church)

1920 G Street NW, Washington, D.C.

March 23rd

Prince William Symphony Players

De’Andre Anderson, narrator / David Montgomery, conductor

World Premiere showing of The Soldier’s Tale images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

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drive with the devil

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Three days to go before The Soldier’s Tale in Washington DC, and I’m getting those feelings of regret I knew I’d have about not being there. It was never on really. Too far away and I’ve too many pressing deadlines. C’est la vie!

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The old man seeks to close a deal with Joseph for the soldier’s violin in exchange for a magic book. Joseph is at first hesitant, but finally agrees to spend three days with the old man in order to give him violin lessons. Afterwards his journey home in the old man’s carriage is a tad hair-raising, as it doesn’t stick to the road but flies through the air, a clue, perhaps, that all was not quite as it had seemed with the bargain! And so it turns out when Joseph discovers that not three days have passed, but three years, during which time his fiancé has married and had a family! His own mother is terrified of him, thinking Joseph an apparition. He’s unwittingly made a Faustian pact with the Davil, and now finds himself an outcast from his own community.

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There should have been two horses really, but time ran out!

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Igor Stravinsky’s L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (THE SOLDIER’S TALE)

Die Vereinigte Kirche (The United Church)

1920 G Street NW, Washington, D.C.

March 23rd

Prince William Symphony Players

De’Andre Anderson, narrator / David Montgomery, conductor

World Premiere showing of The Soldier’s Tale images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

the princess takes a tumble

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

The Princess maquette is made of fourteen components if you include the fact that she has two heads and two pairs of legs. Some of the pieces… the head in profile, both pairs of legs, the sleeves and her forearms and hands… are painted on both sides so as to be reversible. Given that there are so few parts, she’s quite a versatile puppet and can be made to dance a limited repertoire of steps reasonably well. But her steps don’t always go quite as planned, as may be discovered when you scroll down.