BY JENNY ERIKSSON, THE MARAIS PROJECT FOUNDER AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
The idea for The Marais Project’s most recent album Australian Monody was more prosaic. It started with an unexpected email.
Australian composer Gordon Kerry wrote with an offer to compose new work for me. We met briefly many years ago through Musica Viva’s education program, and he had kindly written a positive review of one of our Marais Project albums. The upshot was that he had financial support from the late Marena Manzoufas to write a piece for The Marais Project, which he titled Christchurch Monody, referring to the recent massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand. This was such a generous gift, particularly when Gordon suggested composing a new piece for my electric viola da gamba group Elysian Fields as well.
Christchurch Monody is a wonderful composition, which sadly took quite a while to premiere due to repeated lockdowns. When I thought about the music and subject matter of Christchurch Monody, an idea began to form.
In light of this moving Australian work, I began to ask myself a question. Why not a whole album of Australian songs – perhaps with a sprinkling of selections from overseas, but all sung by Australians? Thus, Australian Monody, monody being a musical term that arose around 1600 to describe vocal works written for a single voice.
An album of Australian melodies is hardly a new idea. But The Marais Project is based around the rare and archaic instrumentation of viola da gambas, theorbo, and voice. Traditionally, our concert programs are built around the French, German, English, and Italian baroque, with a dash or two of Swedish music added to the mix! In following this creative path, we would have to commission or arrange quite a deal of new music – never an easy task with our constrained resources. We had always commissioned living Australian composers, but we needed new songs!
Around this point in time, countertenor Russell Harcourt entered the scene. Russell had been a student of renowned Australian countertenor Graham Pushee at Sydney Conservatorium. He was back in Australia after doing postgraduate study in London and performing widely in Europe. He and I had been corresponding and talking about doing concerts together.
By chance, we found out that Russell and Marais Project soprano/violinist Susie Bishop had attended the same high school. Susie had also gone on to do a Masters in voice in the United Kingdom. In collaboration with lutenist/guitarist Tommie Andersson, we gradually came up with a set of songs we thought would work.
I commissioned composer Alice Chance to do an arrangement of her choral work Precious Colours for our combination of two viola da gambas, theorbo, violin/soprano, and countertenor. Precious Colours was originally inspired by the Dreamtime story How the Opal Came to Be, as told by Gamilaraay woman, the late Aunty June Barker. Aunty June generously shared this story with Alice during a Moorambilla Voices artist education and collaborative immersion on Gamilaraay country in 2014.
Russell had previously performed Carl Vine’s gorgeous song Love me Sweet. With Carl’s permission, Tommie arranged it for our ensemble.
I had asked Susie to write a song for my electric viola da gamba group – of which she is a member – which had not been premiered due to Covid. I realised that her Lullaby for a Broken World could work with an early music rather than jazz instrumentation.
As we tested out material, it was clear that an underlying theme was emerging: light and darkness; love and loss. Virtually all the music on the album touched one or more of these deep resonant concepts.
Carl Vine and John Dowland, for example, write beautifully about the tenderness and melancholy of love; while Gordon Kerry and Isaac Nathan reflected on human tragedy – murder, in fact. We cast the net wider and included O dive custos Auriacæ domus (Ode on the Death of Queen Mary), a stunning duo for two high voices by Henry Purcell that commemorates the death of Queen Mary. Russell also chose a companion piece, Evening Hymn, by Purcell, while I suggested John Dowland’s Now, O Now, I Needs Must Part, for which Tommie wrote an amazing lute solo based onthe Frog Galliard, which is the instrumental counterpart to Now, O Now.
As all Marais Project albums include music by Marais, Tommie and I recorded a suite by Marin Marais for which I composed a final movement, in honour of my musical mentor.
A satisfying compositional symmetry was apparent. Alongside greats of earlier days such as Purcell, Dowland, and Marais, we feature three songs by male living composers – Gordon Kerry, Carl Vine, and Michael Nyman; and three tracks by contemporary female composers – Alice Chance, Susie Bishop, and me.
Light and darkness, love and loss, surrounded the production of the album. After the first two days in the studio in December 2021, I was diagnosed with a condition called Mallet Finger, which affected the last joint of the second finger of my left hand. I got through the final day of recording, but my finger has been splinted ever since. I’ve kept playing with three fingers as best I can, choosing music I could re-configure. It is only now in April that I beginning to play normally again.
In January 2021, while we were in post-production, my mother died. Although injured, I was able to perform at her memorial service. Mum was not a musician, but she loved music and ensured all her children learned instruments. Until her final illness, she virtually never missed a Marais Project concert.
Where there is darkness, there is also light. Australian Monody is now finished. I have dedicated the album to the memory of my late mother.
We also seem to be through the worst of the pandemic, plus the terrible floods. As I write, I am bathed in autumnal Easter sunlight. Golden beams stream through my window and reflect off the green leaves outside. Easter is the time of the year that embodies for many the cycle of death and renewal, darkness and light.
Australian Monody could only come into being on this the continent I call home. Of that, I am immensely proud.
Australian Monody will be launched at Precious Colours, 3pm May 7 at The Independent Theatre, North Sydney.
Australian Monody will be made available from MOVE Records, and streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music.
