
speaking
for SSAATTBB solo voices
First performance by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain Fellowship Octet (2016-7)
Conducted by Esther Jones
Programme Note
This piece is inspired by the Living Words Anthology which documents the words of people experiencing dementia, but instead of focusing on the experience of dementia, which I cannot relate to personally, I wanted the piece to be analogous to the way that the anthology gives people experiencing dementia a way to express themselves and turns their words into something beautiful. The piece starts with hazy whispering and fragments of words and sentences, like muddled thoughts but with something lurking behind. Gradually through the piece the textures and harmony clear up and fragments turn into flowing melodic lines and at the end of the piece there is maximum clarity and there is just repetition of the last words of the poem – ‘Think, wish, remember.’
JC
Text
Comments on Language and Words from The Things Between Us - Living Words: Anthology 1
Sometimes you don't feel on top
You think I wish something like this or that happened
Could remember better
The whole life is a mystery
We can assume what we can assume
But we can't
Force it to happen.
Every year that you are
Growing up
Puts different words in to your mind
We are changing
For the worse or the better
Sometimes you don't feel on top
Point is: when you are talking about one thing
Your mind is going different directions
Sometimes use words - weren't intentional -
They fit.
We got to be a goldmine practically of words
Can stir something else up
Think, wish, remember?