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Agamemnon's Tomb

"Agamemnon’s Tomb" was commissioned by the Huddersfield Choral Society and first performed by them in May 2008, with the Orchestra of Opera North, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. In writing a work for this choir I was mindful of a cultural legacy stretching back to the choir’s foundation in 1836, not to mention its distinguished commissioning history, which includes works by Vaughan Williams and Walton. Despite its worldwide reputation, the choir remains an entirely amateur organisation, so the primary research questions were: 1) how to engage with the choral tradition the choir represents and to extend it in a new way, while respecting its origins; 2) how to provide an amateur chorus with a contemporary musical experience without alienating them or undermining their confidence.

The subject matter of the work was exclusively my own decision. Sacheverell Sitwell’s original epic poem had to be shortened by about two-thirds – a task I undertook myself, with comments from several critical friends. The result is a work that has the outward trappings of a sacred oratorio on the subject of death (like many other sacred oratorios), but which treats the subject from an atheistic perspective, an approach which, to my knowledge, has not previously been attempted in this way and for this kind of musical ensemble.

Choral sections of the piece were workshopped by the choir in my presence and useful feedback on the choral writing was collected from members of the choir as part of the workshopping process and absorbed into the final version of the composition. There was also an opportunity to discuss with the choir the work’s subject matter, particularly the extent to which the musical setting was able to ‘redeem’ the bleakness of much of the text – a key objective of the compositional process.