It's Tunes For Our Troops!
It's Tunes For Our Troops!
Declan MacManus, a.k.a. Elvis Costello, has always been something of an iconoclast. His career took an odd turn in 1992 when he teamed up with the Brodsky Quartet to write and perform a song cycle titled “The Juliet Letters”. The idea of a song accompanied by a string quartet is not new: Samuel Barber’s “Dover Beach”, a 1935 setting of the Matthew Arnold poem, is a masterpiece. But the path to “Juliet” was a strange one. What resulted was a disk that made a splash in 1992. The classical music community embraced it with gusto, but not so much the popular music community. The disk is almost forgotten today. I’ll let Declan tell it his own way.
So there was this professor in Verona who answered letters addressed to Juliet...
Well, if that sounds like the start of a tall story, I suppose it is. My wife, Cait, pointed out the tiny newspaper item about a Veronese academic who had taken on the task of replying to letters addressed to “Juliet Capulet”. This apparently continued for a number of years, until some gentlemen of the press exposed this secret correspondence. Quite how he came by these letters in the first place remains unclear. We can only make a guess as to their content. After all, these people were writing to an imaginary woman, and a dead imaginary woman at that. Perhaps they were simply scholarly enquiries, or letters of sympathy from others disappointed in love, or even a plea from somebody forced into an unhappy marriage. Whatever was contained in these letters and their replies, the idea of this correspondence provided our initial inspiration.
I first saw the Brodsky Quartet play at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in 1989. They were giving a series of concerts in which they were to perform all of the string quartets composed by Dimitri Shostakovich. Having arrived in town to attend the concert in which they played Quartets #7, #8 and #9, we returned on two subsequent evenings to hear them complete the cycle. I recall running out of a BBC television studio where I had anxiously completed a program presenting the album “Spike” in order to get to the last concert on time. Such was the impact of these performances. Not only did I come away with a clearer impression of the music, but also a strong sense of the love and dedication with which the Quartet played it. Over the next two years we went to see the Brodsky play some wonderful music: Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven and Bartok. Little did I suspect, but members of the Quartet had been to my London concerts during the same period. Somehow the connection was made, we exchanged letters and recordings, and finally arranged to meet after their next London appearance. It was after that lunchtime concert in November 1991 that we began our collaboration.
At first we just talked and talked and ... talked. This led to several informal musical sessions. We looked at the characteristics of the music that we loved and admired. The Quartet played pieces, I played songs, sometimes we listened to records. Naturally, some of the music introduced was unfamiliar, but this only added to the number of possibilities. Soon our own ideas began to emerge.
We wanted to explore the underused combination of voice and string quartet, but were anxious to avoid that junkyard named “crossover”. This is no more my stab at “classical music” than it is the Brodsky Quartet’s first rock and roll album. It does, however, employ the music which we believe touches whichever part of the being you care to mention. It also conforms to, and occasionally upsets, the structures found in our respective disciplines and indiscipline!
With “The Juliet Letters” as our title, we thought of the many types of character that the letter form would allow us. Somewhere there is a list of letters which we considered: love letter, begging letter, chain letter, suicide note, etc. In order to make the work more personal, we decided that each of us would contribute to the text, not forgetting the words written by Michael Thomas’ wife, Marina. [Michael is first violinist with the Quartet.] As the lyricist in the house, I could act as a kind of editor. From these early drafts came a curious advantage. Of course, each of us had different approaches to the common subject, and through some unconscious poetry, and in the absence of much of the crafty language of the songwriter, we were able to assemble strong and varied texts. It seems that only poets and politicians write letters with a view to them being printed in collected form. In my experience, the language of most letters swings wildly from the lyrical to the banal, and from the courteous to the confessional, sometimes inside the same paragraph. I hope we’ve caught something of this in the words of “The Juliet Letters”.
The process of composition and arrangement was varied and is mysterious to contemplate. Some pieces arrived in both words and music complete. Bridges were then built between smaller related items, while at least one song and a crucial passage of music was effectively composed “spontaneously”. While the job of compiling and creating the “draft arrangements” was shared among the members of the Quartet, the process of arranging was one of trial and error involving all five of us. This has continued through the rehearsals, the first two performances and even during the recording. Having previously been unable to read or write down music, my own recent studies have allowed me to progress, since January 1992, from picking out my ideas at the piano (using what is known in certain circles as “the crab method”), through piano scores to full proposed four-part arrangements. I have to give credit to the Quartet for their perseverance in deciphering some of my early intentions from the most wayward of playing. As I have found with other collaborations, the music that you most confidently attribute to one party invariably turns out to be the work of the person you least suspect.
”The Juliet Letters” begins with a short composition titled “Deliver Us”. It simply serves to open the story, for although the following letters are not intended to create a dialogue, you may choose to draw your own conclusions from some of the resulting juxtapositions. One of the conventions which we have taken from classical song, or for that matter folk song, is the acceptance of a man singing a woman’s story. In “For Other Eyes”, a woman confesses her jealous suspicions and fears.
Elvis Costello & the Brodsky Quartet: “Deliver Us” & “For Other Eyes”
For the next song, I have taken the liberty of imagining a reply made by a character similar to the Veronese professor who unwittingly provided our title. If he should ever hear this piece, I hope he will not be offended by our presumption – in this version of the mystery the author of the letter is a compassionate and romantic soul. This leads without pause into Paul Cassidy’s “Dead Letter” which darkens the already melancholy mood into one of sadness and loss. [Paul is violist with the Quartet.]
After a short introduction of my invention comes Michael Thomas’ first song, to which I added the tango passages. It is an eccentric aunt’s reply to a begging letter.
The text was derived from Ian Belton’s version of a child’s note. I added the final repeated lines and the music. [Ian is second violinist with the Quartet.]
Without dragging the listener through the mechanics of our working method, it should be stated that in naming the “main composer”, we hope to indicate who was responsible for the initial music and defining structure of the collaborative pieces. Even if others have amended the melodic line or added further musical content, when such a credit is stated, it is because we still regard it as “their” song. In this case, this credit very much belongs to Michael Thomas. The song begins with a young man sitting down in a seaside café to write a postcard in which he details all his estranged lover’s faults. The truth of the situation is gradually revealed.
In performance, this concludes the first half of the sequence. The music was developed from a piece first outlined by Jacqueline Thomas. [Jacqueline is cellist with the Quartet.] The letter portrays an obsessive and deluded person, writing letters never sent, expecting impossible replies.