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Preface

Mari Lwyd - Programme Notes

Mari Lwyd (pronounced: 'Marry Loo-id') was commissioned by Nick Little for the Chamber Orchestra's Christmas concert. He requested a fun piece of music that would be suitable for the season and that features those sections commonly less used in the normal Chamber Orchestra repertoire: namely the Brass, Wind and Percussion. Another specification was that the string parts should demand the minimum of rehearsal time. The resultant work, Mari Lwyd, attempts to create an abstract tone poem based on the Mari Lwyd custom.

This custom was once common throughout South Wales and it belonged to the season of Christmas and New Year. The Mari Lwyd, literally Grey Mary, was a horses skull decorated with colourful ribbons that was taken from house to house, carried by a man concealed under a white sheet. The Mari Lwyd party consisted of four or five people who would engage the inhabitants of a house in a poetic contest. The party remained outside until either themselves or their competitors failed to answer a rhyme. If the party failed to answer then they would move on to the next house, however, if the inhabitants failed then the Mari Lwyd party had the right to enter and eat and drink with the losers.

Mari Lwyd was also inspired by Vernon Watkins' poem, The Ballad of Mari Lwyd. Watkins' poem uses the rhythmic properties of the opening lines of the first stanza, 'Midnight. Midnight. Midnight. Midnight. Hark at the hands of the clock.', to create the importance of time throughout the ballad by using these lines as a recurring motif. In a similar fashion the percussion represents the chimes of the clock striking midnight: the chimes are brief moments of reality that permeate and interrupt this surreal representation of the Mari Lwyd custom.

Richard Huw Cole

Prologue

Mari Lwyd, Horse of Frost, Star-horse, and White Horse of the Sea, is carried to us.
The Dead return.
Those exiles carry her, they who seem holy and have put on corruption, they who seem corrupt and have put on holiness.
They strain against the door.
They strain towards the fire which fosters and warms the Living.
The Living, who have cast them out, from their own fear, from their own fear of themselves, into the outer loneliness of death, rejected them, and cast them out for ever:
The Living cringe and warm themselves at the fire, shrinking from that loneliness, that singleness of heart.
The Living are defended by the rich warmth of the flames which keeps that loneliness out.
Terrified, they hear the Dead tapping at the panes; then they rise up, armed with the warmth of firelight, and the condition of scorn.
It is New Year's Night.
Midnight is burning like a taper. In an hour, in less than an hour, it will be blown out.
It is the moment of conscience.
The living moment.
The dead moment.
Listen.

Vernon Watkins

Instrumentation

2 Flutes (both doubling Piccolo)
2 Oboes (2nd Oboe doubling Cor Anglais)
2 Clarinets
2 Bassoons
2 Horns
2 Bb Trumpets
2 Trombones
Timpani
Percussion (4 players):
Xylophone, Tubular Bells, 2 tom toms (high and low), woodblock, tam tam
Piano
Strings
Duration: c. 10 minutes

Notes on the Music

Nocturne - Procession: the offstage brass group should play the repeated cell phrase at least twice before processing into the concert hall. The ideal path would be to enter from the rear of the hall, through the audience, and line up in front of the stage to the conductor's left. Depending on the acoustic, it may be necessary to mute the brass during the procession in order to maintain the balance with the orchestra, if this is the case then fabric stone-lined mutes are preferred to the metal types available. The brass group should leave the hall through the closest exit to achieve the effect of distance required in the Exodus. If an added level of drama is required then the brass group may be dressed in the common costumes of the custom: these are Sergeant, Merryman, Punch, and Judy. A Mari, as described in the programme notes, may also be used to lead the procession.

GAME RULES: in the Games, the woodwind and brass must rhythmically answer each other using the given pitches. The players may use the pitches in any order and may use octave transpositions and ornaments. The players must also confine themselves to the duration indicated by the size of the box surrounding the pitches. For example if a box takes up a whole bar, then the player has a full bar to answer within, and if a box finishes midway through a bar then the amount of that bar that the box takes up can be determined by the remaining rests in that bar. Within each box is a smaller box containing either the letter S indicating that they are the first instrument to play a statement in that Game, or the name of the instrument that they are intended to imitate. The players should aim to start very simply and gradually become as complex as they dare!

CHAOS: the length of the chaos is determined by the brass and string music which must be in strict tempo. The woodwind has a selection of three different cells that they may play in any order. They should attempt to play the tempo given in each cell and always attempt to avoid the tempo of the brass and strings.

STAGE LAYOUT: To enhance their antiphonal writing, the woodwind should be seated in a palindromic formation with the Horns in the center (the Horns represent the referee in the games) followed by the Bassoons, Clarinets, Oboes and Flutes so that they are seated as follows:
Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Horn, Bassoon, Clarinet, Oboe, Flute.