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At His Majesty's Pleasure

65' opera without words. Written for early instrument ensemble 'His Majesty's Sagbutts & Cornetts'

Although the original circumstances of the commission from ‘His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts’ stemmed from an educational outreach project in the North Pennines, the final project (funded by an award from the Performer’s Rights Society) quickly became a CD-length work, released to celebrate the ensemble’s thirtieth anniversary. Scored for four cornets, four sagbuts, harpsichord and chamber organ, over half of the work’s nineteen movements have been performed in Spain, the UK and New York. Harry describes the work as a surreal Kinderszenen (following Robert Schumann’s collection of piano pieces), but its design also plays with the notion of a concept album: the same ensemble is used in a multitude of ways to create a variety of sonorities, underscored by a hidden narrative. The key starting point for the work was the extraordinary timbral richness and unforgiving nature of the instruments themselves, as well as close observation of how the ensemble's players dealt with such limitations. The treatment of the brass varies from that of an early music group (Broken Consort, Old Father Bald Pate, His Majesty’s Retreat I) to something more akin to a South African township band (Best Intentions, Wet Nurse, Livery and Regalia, Customs and Excise). In Court of Augmentation the players are tuned a quarter-tone apart and in Throne there are through-composed, fully-notated parts for six sine-wave tuning devices. Because the work (like Schumann) deals with the perspective of a young child, it plays with conventions drawn from children’s music – Old Father Bald Pate, Horses and Hounds, Coronation (Milk) – as well as ‘misreadings’ of adult music. Harry noticed players’ penchant to play musical ‘quotes’ in rehearsals as a running commentary on the ability of the conductor or the progress of the rehearsal; the notion of ‘reading’ also became a key concept for the piece.