In 2024, Folk becomes a piece of classical music, for soprano and full orchestra.
I was approached several years ago by the soprano Claire Booth to write a libretto based on some of the chapters from Folk, for her to sing. She had loved the book and passed it to the composer Helen Grime.
After some pandemic disruption, and the funding challenges facing the arts during and after that time, we secured a commission from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Helen wrote the music for my words.
Folk the song cycle received its world premiere at Glasgow City Halls on 26th September 2024, and a further performance in Aberdeen on 27th September. The BBC Radio 3 broadcast of the performance, on 8th October 2024, is available on BBC Sounds from 8th October to 7th November 2024. There will be further performances in 2025, including at the Aldeburgh festival in June – I will update this page with details as they become available
Claire, Helen and I appeared live on BBC Radio 4’s arts show, Front Row, to talk about the project. You can currently listen again here.
You can read a short article about how Claire made this all happen here.
The premiere performance received rave reviews, and I can only express my admiration and gratitude to Claire Booth, Helen Grime, the conductor Ryan Wigglesworth and the entire BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for an absolutely electric performance.
‘A new song cycle, full of mystical texts and bold musical pictures, is an attention-grabbing way for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to start its new season, and Helen Grime’s Folk repaid the risk richly with its shifting kaleidoscope of colours and its bold way of engaging with both texture and rhythm.’
– from The Times, full review here (paywall).
‘“Prick Song”, the opening piece, stirred visions of Gilbert’s “Gorse Mother”, a “folkloric figment who haunts the headland where boys and girls play dangerous games of seduction among the thorns”, conjuring a hauntingly primal soundscape created by continuously intense percussion and a fiddle inspired melody. “Fishskin Hareskin” followed, a clear homage to folk music, swirling with emotionality as created by the piercing tones of Booth. A representation of the grief of a young woman for the loss of her hares, wrestling with her new life as a fishwife, the folkloric presence of the composition began to settle in the space.
The cacophonous “Water Bull Bride”, envisioning a young woman’s seductive encounter with a sea-spirit, allowed each performer to demonstrate their virtuosity. In a mercurial and fierce song, Booth seemed to sing from the depths of a primordial urge, delivering intensity to the fervidly constructed lyrics. “How hard his body curls. Breathe in deep, his scent. Of water bull, water bull”. “Folk” ended with “Long Have I Lain Beside the Water”, a sombre lament sung from the mind of a murderous sister. Encompassing the savage nature of the composition, marked by a dark bewilderedness, it provided a close to an impeccable composition.’
– from the Glasgow Guardian, full review here.
‘With texts rooted in Manx folklore, adapted for the composer by Zoe Gilbert from her eponymous novel, Folk invites exactly the kind of hyperbolic performance that Booth invested in it – outwardly quixotic, inwardly dark, seductive qualities instantly triggered by the incendiary clarion call that introduced the opening Prick Song. Its folksy playfulness gave way to the crystalline virtuosity of Fishskin, Hareskin, Booth’s electrifying versatility matched by the captivating sparkle that conductor Ryan Wigglesworth elicited from a pliant, invigorating SSO.’
– from Vox Carnyx, full review here.
Intrigued by the process of turning prose fiction into libretto, I have written more words that have been set to music. I will share details of future performances of those, and of Folk the song cycle, here.