The Lunar Society – invention for chamber ensemble

The Lunar Society of Birmingham was an informal group of natural philosophers, intellectuals, and industrialists active in
 and around Birmingham in the late 18th century.  Members included the physician Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles),
 chemist Joseph Priestley, and industrialist Matthew Boulton; others connected to the group included American polymath
 Benjamin Franklin, astronomer and composer William Herschel, and painter Joseph Wright of Derby.  The Society met and
 corresponded to discuss their scientific and entrepreneurial ideas, and for almost fifty years was the centre of the so-called
 ‘Midlands Enlightenment’, although their influence was felt far beyond England.
  

This composition takes the Society’s name as its inspiration; at first encounter the name seems to suggest something
 mysterious, covert, and ritualistic, but in reality the Society’s members met at the full moon not for any secret or occult
 purpose but for the pragmatic reason that a full moon provided light by which they could safely ride home after the conclusion of
 the meeting.  This tension between the mysterious and commonplace animates the opening and closing sections of the work.

Above all the Society’s members were inventors, and this idea has obvious musical parallels. The central section of the 
work evolves from the chords of the opening into a whirring machine which gradually subsides into a quiet, simple ending.

Recorded at Master Shipwright's House, London, on 28 February 2021
Supported by the Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust

Rosie Bowker, flute
Wiliam Ball, oboe
Matthew Wilsher, clarinet
Emily Newman, bassoon
Elizabeth Bass, harp
Ashley Beauchamp, piano

Bertie Baigent, conductor

Hugh Series, audio recording

The Lunar Society

Dedicated to and performed by Jason Shafer, principal clarinet of Colorado Symphony
Recorded April 2020

Feint

These songs were composed for the Ludlow English Song Festival 2013.  They are settings of very  short but vivid poems by Coleridge and are performed by Martin Bussey (baritone) and Gavin Roberts (piano).

Come, come thou bleak December wind

This piece was inspired by a comedian's throwaway comment that 'there are two sorts of music: the sort that makes you feel nice and relaxed, and the sort that sounds like things falling out of a cupboard'.  This composition was highly commended in the BBC Young Composers' Competition 2013.  Here it is performed by the Aurora Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Collon.  This recording is used by kind permission of BBC Radio 3.  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

Things falling out of a cupboard

This piece depicts an imagined landscape; motifs recur and are developed as they are perceived in changing relation to each other, as a viewer sees objects in different ways, according to his or her changing perspective of the landscape. Finally, the foreground, represented by the oboe melody, comes into focus.

Performed by the Michaels Quartet with Alex Woolf (piano) and Rees Webster (oboe) in Trinity College Chapel in May 2014.

View

A recording of my latest piece for chamber orchestra, performed the London Young Sinfonia at the St Marylebone Festival 2017

"No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim;
And (glancing on my own thin, veinèd wrist),
In such a little tremor of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God."

This work is inspired by a line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh. The poem reveals Barrett Browning’s belief in the immanence of God in even the smallest parts of His creation, and of the abundance of heavenly things in the natural world. I present the line of poetry within the context of a paean or hymn of praise, seeking to explore the connection between Barratt Browning’s intense religious fervour and the more pantheistic visions of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, with which this work was first performed. To this end my composition assigns clearly differentiated musical material to
‘earth’ and ‘heaven’, but explores the connections between the two, demonstrating that ultimately they are both woven from the same musical fabric. The bright, sustained harmony and lyrical melody at the beginning and end of the work reflect Barratt Browning’s quietly restrained joy in her belief of God’s all-encompassing presence.

Paean: "earth's crammed with heaven"

A quiet pavan, with canons

Commissioned by Robert Smith and Stefan Schwarz, and first performed by Robert Smith in the Maria-Magdalenen-Kirche, Templin (Germany) on 27 July 2018.

St.-Gertraud-Kirche, Frankfurt (Oder), 31 July 2018

A quiet pavan, with canons

Preces and Responses

Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge
Cantor, Louis Wilson

19 June 2016

Preces And Responses

Composer, conductor
Music Director of Waterperry Opera Festival and Assistant Conductor of Colorado Symphony
Published by Stainer & Bell
Commissions from St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal Philharmonic Society
Prizes in the Britten Sinfonia Composition Competition 2015, BBC Young Composers' Competition 2013, National Centre for Early Music Composition Competition 2011

Bertie Baigent

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