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ET26.4 A medic on a mission · The Downing Arts Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the downing arts podcast.
• 0:08
  The sun's come out at last, there are ducks on the pond in the rose
• 0:12
  garden, and revision is in full swing. This past week,
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  there's been a plethora of musical and dramatic events, with the chapel choir's fantastic
• 0:19
  contribution to the commemoration of benefactors on Monday with Barstow's cracking anthem,
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  Blessed City, Heavenly Salem, as well as music by Britten and Pwelly,
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  the very successful student. Written show in the theatre at the end of last week,
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  which is going to the Camden fringe this summer, and a beautiful rendition of Vaughan
• 0:36
  Williams, Songs of Travel from three of the choral scholars on Tuesday.
• 0:48
  It's great to have James Bybee back in the studio this week. Welcome, James.
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  Good to be back. So you're nearly done, is that right?
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  That's right. I had my final exams quite recently and
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  I'm on my final bit of placement before starting work. And do
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  you want to just remind our listeners what you've been doing? So I'm now in
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  the final or sixth year of medicine, and so I've been at
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  Downing this whole time and I was very privileged to be
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  in the chapel choir for five of those years and for taking a year out
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  of the choir this year to focus on the placements which are all
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  across East Anglia. Yeah. Wow. It's a long old haul, isn't it?
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  Indeed, indeed. Yeah. So what's next? What will you do next year?
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  So I will be heading to Cardiff
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  for the job as long as I pass the exams and that is all secured
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  for me. And then musically, I'm not entirely sure what will come up
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  next. I'll have to see what's around. I'm sure
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  you'll find something. Yeah, cool. So, speaking of music,
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  you. You were going to talk about composing today, so. Yeah, I know
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  you've done a fair bit of composing. I know we've even sung some of your
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  stuff in choir, which has been great. So, yeah. Do you want to tell us
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  a little bit about what you've been up to on that front? Yes,
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  of course. So I mainly write music
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  for church, which is quite different from some of the other composers that
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  you've had on the podcast so far. And I find it's
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  a different challenge because in a sense, all of the individuality
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  and the exploration that one can do is curtailed a
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  bit, and you have to think a lot more about what is
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  needed by a particular service or a
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  particular time of year. And so I've been writing a lot of music recently
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  that has that in mind. So the
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  most Recent thing for me has been in Holy Week, back at
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  the start of April, I wrote some music for the
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  days of Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday, and that then
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  was put into use and was quite successful,
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  thankfully. Fantastic. Yeah. And I know you've been director of music at
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  Fisher House or directing the English choir there,
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  and presumably that's coming to an end as well. That's right,
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  yes. So this is at the Catholic Chaplaincy to the university.
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  And, yes, it's actually been an interesting process of hiring my replacement recently.
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  We've just decided on who that will be.
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  Yeah. And I know lots of your compositions have
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  been used sort of liturgically, so, I mean, I know from my own experience it's
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  quite a thrill to hear your own piece being sung or played, even if
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  it is something small, you know, like a psalm chant or something like that.
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  Yes. So, yeah. I mean, how much of your stuff has found its way
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  into Fisher House services? Quite a bit.
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  And I think being director obviously gives a bit of advantage on
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  that front, being the one who mainly chooses most of the music,
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  but the psalms, perhaps the biggest thing,
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  because a lot of people contributed to a whole book of
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  psalms that covers every single Sunday, including yourself.
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  We actually did one of your psalms quite recently. Oh,
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  wow. But, yes, I think I wrote nearly
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  100 Psalm tunes during that time,
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  which has now been sort of semi professionally published and
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  that's used quite frequently. And that's the type of functional composition
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  that I think church music is all about, really. You can
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  have a bit of flair and originality, but there are limits on what
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  you're doing, because you've got to have something a congregation can sing,
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  you've got to have something that has a set text. You're rarely writing texts.
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  And I find that actually those constraints are part of the challenge
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  that make it quite exciting. The other thing we've done a bit more
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  recently is a math setting that I wrote.
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  I wanted something that was a bit easier than what we
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  were doing before, perhaps something that we could use guitars in the future, rather than
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  relying just on the organ. And that has been implemented by
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  quite well. Yeah. Fantastic. And, of course, with the new
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  texts coming out recently in the Catholic Church, there's a whole
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  load of new music that's needed. Yeah, great. And, I mean,
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  you've talked a bit about constraints. Do you find, though, that perhaps it makes it
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  easier having limitations? Because, I mean, if you're sort of. If the brief
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  is write something, it can be for any text, any ensemble,
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  any kind of style, like, that's actually Quite. Could be quite paralyzing. So do you
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  find the limitations actually make it easier? I do, actually, and I tend
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  to be the kind of person who works well to a deadline, and so writing
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  something for a deadline as just one
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  piece, a hymn, a psalm, a section of a maths setting,
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  tends to be quite approachable thing. And I think also one
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  of the things that was interesting writing the Fisher Psalter with all of the psalms
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  in it, was that we had quite a few people who had never written
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  a piece of music for a publication before. Maybe they'd done a bit of tinkering
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  with, you know, some notation software, or they had a bash on the piano,
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  but they'd never written a psalm before, and there were a good few people who'd
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  not done that before. And yet they did it, and they did it really well.
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  I think that can often be quite a good way to get into composing
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  for people interested in church music. Do you start with
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  the text or do you start with a tune? Or how do you find your
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  way into the process? I tend to start with the text. I sort of
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  noodle away at it for quite a while.
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  Sort of an example of this was I've
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  got through all of this time and I've never written a setting of an alleluia
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  for peace on a Sunday. And so I thought I should write one.
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  And I thought, I don't actually know what alleluia means.
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  I know it means something about praising God or something. It means alleluia, doesn't it?
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  Yes, exactly. It's one of those words that we use so much that it just.
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  It sort of fades into obscurity. And so I looked up the etymology
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  of it, and it does actually mean praise the Lord.
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  But as soon as I realized that, I realized I wanted the emphasis to be
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  alleluia rather than alleluia, which is what a lot of settings
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  do. They go alleluia rather than alleluia. And so I
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  wrote a setting that did exactly that. So I was rather pleased with that just
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  as soon as I had that in my mind. Some tunes sort of circulated
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  round until something set, and then I wrote that down
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  and the rest. I tend to find that the melody
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  comes first and then I put in place the harmony. And if the harmony then
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  means that I have to change the melody a little bit to make it a
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  bit better, then I'll do that. But generally melody first,
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  which is a choice in itself to make. Yeah, I think a lot of church
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  music has to be very melodic. It can't necessarily be very sort of impressionistic,
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  unfortunately. Well, I suppose if it's got to be sung by congregation,
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  then especially it needs to be memorable. Do you have
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  any big projects coming up or any kind of things that you're working on?
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  Actually, not much at the moment. A lot of the big things are done,
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  but I think this is the joy of it, that something will come up at
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  some point, a text will be needed. And I think there's
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  a little bit of a misconception with this, because a lot of people
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  look at the huge amount of church music that there is,
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  extraordinary amount, and think there can't be that much more to write.
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  And yet, not infrequently, I will look at the Introit
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  for a Sunday. And that being, for those of you less familiar with the
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  terminology, that's the opening prayer often replaced with a
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  hymn in a lot of churches. I'll look at the Introit and I'll think,
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  there is not a hymn that covers that text. There is not a choir setting.
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  There's nothing. And oftentimes it's a little snippet of
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  the Psalms. And you'd think by now, after two and a half thousand years that
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  all of the psalms would have been done to death, but they haven't. And it's
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  quite an exciting thing that there's so much still left to do.
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  I'm sure those of us who go to church regularly will think,
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  well, we sing the same hymns quite often, or we sing the same things again
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  and again. And partly that's because we don't have enough
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  good hymns even today. You know, there are plenty of hymns
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  people write, but then what catches on in your church? What works
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  best with the resources you have as well? It's quite
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  an exciting challenge. So I know that something will come up. I'm sure that perhaps
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  there'll be requests for things as well, as the term goes on.
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  Do you ever write anything,
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  I hesitate to say, for fun, because from what you said, you know, composing is
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  a fun thing for you, but do you ever write anything just for yourself,
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  just because you want to write it? I must say, actually, with choir
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  music less so, I do write a little bit of organ music just for the
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  fun of it, and that tends to be just things that
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  come to mind. Quite recently, I just wrote just a short little organ piece on
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  the Easter dismissal, sort of
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  a little. Just a short little snippet of melody that is sung
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  at the end of the Mass. And that was quite a fun little project I
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  just did for. Just for the pleasure of it. Great. Well, thanks so much for
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  coming back on the show. It's good to. Good to catch up. And, yeah,
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  good luck with your final weeks of placement and then, of course, the move to
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  Cardiff and everything. Yeah. A time of change. But I'm sure you
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  will, I'm sure you will thrive in your new setting. So, yeah, thanks very much.
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  Thank you. I'm going to miss Cambridge.
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  This week. In college, things die down a little bit, but the choir will be
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  singing Birds Mass for Four Voices on Sunday at six in the chapel in celebration
• 10:47
  of Pentecost outside. College alumnus Declan Hickey performs in
• 10:51
  lyons Sea at 6pm on Saturday. Details in the show notes.
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  Next week, I'll be chatting to Keeper of the Heon Gallery Steve Bennett
• 10:58
  on the eve of the new exhibition opening. Thanks for listening.