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Numbers
"A long sequence."
“Venables’s text is an extract from Simon Howard’s surreal epic Numbers, concerning a swarm of wasps sculpted into a bust of the Marquis de Sade and presented to the local police. The music is duly playful and occasionally disturbing. The sound image of a face forming from shapeless buzzing was beautifully achieved, as was the concluding high G sustained by the soprano, capturing a nicely pared-down Liebestod.” — The Guardian
FROM PHILIP VENABLES:
re several videos of the poems' stagings which can be viewed on Youtube:
numbers 76–80 : tristan und isolde is the second of several ‘settings’ of the poems of Simon Howard, whose work I find incredibly inspiring. To me they are unfussy, evocative, violent and visceral. Absolutely the qualities I look for in music.
This piece continues my preoccupation with mixing spoken text with chamber music, and for concentrating melodrama and meaning into simple but vivid music images. For example, in this piece, references to wasps, death, Wagner and Beethoven. The poem tells a story, which I have kept intact and immediate in the musical setting of it.
Just like Simon’s poem, the piece is in 5 parts, numbers 76, 77, 78, 79 and 80. Parts of the poem are narrated in chorus in between musical tableaux. The central movement is for the vocal quartet only. The rest are dominated by the string quartet. Each section of string movement is less active than the preceding.
The strings play only on a 6-note scale (G, A flat, B flat, C flat, D flat, E double flat) and the voices sing only the remaining six pitches. This leaves the voices with the ‘Tristan’ chord, transposed up a semitone, of A, E, F sharp and C, plus an additional E flat and F natural. The only exception is the soprano’s G in the final section: strings rotate slowly around four pitches, setting up a condensed tragic Liebestod in the final bars – the only time when singing is accompanied by strings.
numbers 76–80 : tristan und isolde was commissioned by Endymion and EXAUDI, with funds generously provided by the RVW Trust, Marina Kleinwort Charitable Trust, the Leche Trust, the Golden Bottle Trust, the Golsoncott Foundation, the Ernest Cooke Trust, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Holst Foundation. The piece was first performed at the Southbank Centre on 19th September 2011 by Endymion and EXAUDI, conducted by James Weeks.
numbers 91–95 is the first of several ‘settings’ of the poems of Simon Howard, whose work I find incredibly inspiring. To me they are unfussy, evocative, violent and visceral. Absolutely the qualities I look for in music.
However, this setting is more of an accompaniment: it doesn’t try to mess with the immediacy of the poem. The themes of nostalgia and forgetting in the poem are echoed by the feint, crackly recordings of the two tape players. The calmness of the poem is reflected in the quiet meditativeness of the music.
numbers 91–95 was commissioned by Ensemble Adapter, Berlin, to be premiered by them at the 2011 Wien Modern Festival and then in several concerts in Prague, Oxford and Berlin. Funds for the commission were generously provided by the Bliss Trust.
PROGRAMME NOTE:
My relationship with Numbers by Simon Howard began in 2011 when I worked with two poems from the book: numbers 76–80 and numbers 91–95. Ever since, I had the intention to set more poems from the book, to gradually form a kind of loose ‘meta-piece’ of all 100 stanzas. The 2011 settings mark the beginning of my explorations of spoken text within my work, and were pivotal pieces for me in that respect. Ten years later, when the circumstances arose to be able to return to the book, I found that, having spent a decade working primarily with spoken text, I wanted to focus back on musical settings of text. To remember, if you like, how to compose. So these two pieces from numbers are just that — my attempt to get back to a more music-led setting of text, while retaining a strong relationship to the structures and ideas in Simon’s work, but hopefully refracted through a musical lens.
numbers 81–85 is a series of five episodes, each quite different from the other. In each episode I’ve tried to distill a feeling or action from the narrative of each stanza, and illustrate it in music. In numbers 96–100 the fives stanzas are taken as a single form. The form of text is mirrored through the fractured pronunciation of the words, the overall idea is of a collective meditation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon Howard was born in Fulham, London, in 1960. He attended University College London & was active as a poet until the early 90s when self-disenchantment with his voice led to muteness. He began to publish again in the late 2000s; his books are ZOOAXEIMPLODE (The Arthur Shilling Press), Numbers (The Knives Forks & Spoons Press), adrift (The Red Ceilings Press) & recently Wrecked (Oystercatcher Press). He has contributed to a tribute volume for Barry Mac...
“Venables’s text is an extract from Simon Howard’s surreal epic Numbers, concerning a swarm of wasps sculpted into a bust of the Marquis de Sade and presented to the local police. The music is duly playful and occasionally disturbing. The sound image of a face forming from shapeless buzzing was beautifully achieved, as was the concluding high G sustained by the soprano, capturing a nicely pared-down Liebestod.” — The Guardian
FROM PHILIP VENABLES:
re several videos of the poems' stagings which can be viewed on Youtube:
numbers 76–80 : tristan und isolde is the second of several ‘settings’ of the poems of Simon Howard, whose work I find incredibly inspiring. To me they are unfussy, evocative, violent and visceral. Absolutely the qualities I look for in music.
This piece continues my preoccupation with mixing spoken text with chamber music, and for concentrating melodrama and meaning into simple but vivid music images. For example, in this piece, references to wasps, death, Wagner and Beethoven. The poem tells a story, which I have kept intact and immediate in the musical setting of it.
Just like Simon’s poem, the piece is in 5 parts, numbers 76, 77, 78, 79 and 80. Parts of the poem are narrated in chorus in between musical tableaux. The central movement is for the vocal quartet only. The rest are dominated by the string quartet. Each section of string movement is less active than the preceding.
The strings play only on a 6-note scale (G, A flat, B flat, C flat, D flat, E double flat) and the voices sing only the remaining six pitches. This leaves the voices with the ‘Tristan’ chord, transposed up a semitone, of A, E, F sharp and C, plus an additional E flat and F natural. The only exception is the soprano’s G in the final section: strings rotate slowly around four pitches, setting up a condensed tragic Liebestod in the final bars – the only time when singing is accompanied by strings.
numbers 76–80 : tristan und isolde was commissioned by Endymion and EXAUDI, with funds generously provided by the RVW Trust, Marina Kleinwort Charitable Trust, the Leche Trust, the Golden Bottle Trust, the Golsoncott Foundation, the Ernest Cooke Trust, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Holst Foundation. The piece was first performed at the Southbank Centre on 19th September 2011 by Endymion and EXAUDI, conducted by James Weeks.
numbers 91–95 is the first of several ‘settings’ of the poems of Simon Howard, whose work I find incredibly inspiring. To me they are unfussy, evocative, violent and visceral. Absolutely the qualities I look for in music.
However, this setting is more of an accompaniment: it doesn’t try to mess with the immediacy of the poem. The themes of nostalgia and forgetting in the poem are echoed by the feint, crackly recordings of the two tape players. The calmness of the poem is reflected in the quiet meditativeness of the music.
numbers 91–95 was commissioned by Ensemble Adapter, Berlin, to be premiered by them at the 2011 Wien Modern Festival and then in several concerts in Prague, Oxford and Berlin. Funds for the commission were generously provided by the Bliss Trust.
PROGRAMME NOTE:
My relationship with Numbers by Simon Howard began in 2011 when I worked with two poems from the book: numbers 76–80 and numbers 91–95. Ever since, I had the intention to set more poems from the book, to gradually form a kind of loose ‘meta-piece’ of all 100 stanzas. The 2011 settings mark the beginning of my explorations of spoken text within my work, and were pivotal pieces for me in that respect. Ten years later, when the circumstances arose to be able to return to the book, I found that, having spent a decade working primarily with spoken text, I wanted to focus back on musical settings of text. To remember, if you like, how to compose. So these two pieces from numbers are just that — my attempt to get back to a more music-led setting of text, while retaining a strong relationship to the structures and ideas in Simon’s work, but hopefully refracted through a musical lens.
numbers 81–85 is a series of five episodes, each quite different from the other. In each episode I’ve tried to distill a feeling or action from the narrative of each stanza, and illustrate it in music. In numbers 96–100 the fives stanzas are taken as a single form. The form of text is mirrored through the fractured pronunciation of the words, the overall idea is of a collective meditation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Simon Howard was born in Fulham, London, in 1960. He attended University College London & was active as a poet until the early 90s when self-disenchantment with his voice led to muteness. He began to publish again in the late 2000s; his books are ZOOAXEIMPLODE (The Arthur Shilling Press), Numbers (The Knives Forks & Spoons Press), adrift (The Red Ceilings Press) & recently Wrecked (Oystercatcher Press). He has contributed to a tribute volume for Barry Mac...
46 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 16, 2022
It's hard to do this work justice in reviewing and summarizing the explosive contents of, which have inspired rich orchestral accompaniments that can and should be viewed on Youtube to appreciate the impact of. So for posterity instead allow me to post a eulogy by the author's friend and some more qualified critics attesting to the significance of Howard's accomplishments, which I look forward to investigating further in the future. Check this out if you are ever feeling bold, and when you do then make sure to track down the arranged stagings with extraordinary music on composer Philip Venables' channel...
Simon Howard, 1960–2013
-------------------------
At the start of this week, I learnt of the tragic, untimely death of the poet Simon Howard.
I didn’t really know him. We were Facebook ‘friends’ and spent time on one or two of the same online forums. We corresponded occasionally. We never met, and I feel immensely sad that now we never will. I don’t even have a face. I knew Simon only through his intelligence, his immense musical sensitivity and his fierce anger at an unjust world.
I can only claim to know his poetry a little, like that of many of his peers in fact. On the odd occasions when I did reveal my utter ignorance and call out for assistance, Simon was exceedingly generous in providing reading lists, links, thoughts and guidance. Generosity is a word that many have used since his passing. I must have assumed that he would always be around for that sort of help, and that I would always be able to catch up eventually as a result. Many of his poems are archived on his blog Walking In the Ceiling; others have been published by (among others) Knives Forks and Spoons (including the brilliant Numbers), Oystercatcher Press and Red Ceilings Press.
Simon’s words rang beyond the small circles of the London poetry scene. His extraordinary affinity for music – he was one of the most well-listened people I think I have known, and certainly among non-musicians – attracted many composers to his poetry. Among those I know to have set or referenced his work in theirs are Richard Barrett, Philip Venables, Philipp Blume and Robert Dahm, but I’m sure there are more. There is talk of a possible tribute concert, and if more details arise I will post them here.
Critics on his final work, 'Wrecked'
-------------------------
“Simon Howard’s poetry has the rare quality of evoking ‘images’ whose ‘sonic’ component is as memorable as (and indistinguishable from) the visual – and not because musical references are threaded through the poems; rather, everything in this poetry emerges from an obsessive sensitivity to a music which is not just ‘in’ the words but surrounds and informs them, in ways that no other poetry I know can do.”
– Richard Barrett
“All my fascist uncles / all my cannibal nieces
& wonderfully a multitude of green butterflies flutters from our stony mouths
The lines give a sense of the breadth of Howard’s landscape. A landscape of stones, of green LED lights, the screen, keyboard clicks, domesticity, songbirds somewhere. Quiet terror, silent determination, endless waiting. Eerie as Hegel, peaceful as unrest. Wrecked is a remarkable chronicle, a calm refusal of the implosive Tory apocalypse.”
– Sean Bonney
“Wrecked is a collection sewn tightly with ephemeral, vivid dreamscapes that dart from butterflies to the odd polar bear. The transience of nature is contrasted with signifiers of everyday life such as chairs, cupboards and cigarillos. Complete with a Teutonic instrument that continues to lure the reader further in, it is a book in which the musicality remains with the reader well after it is finished. Each word is packed with a precision that would make the most attentive of double bass players blush. London Town may be invisible, but Wrecked’s charm and cohesion is there for all to see.”
– Sarah Crewe
“Read outside, through the damage. These lyrics ring out vestiges of song in silent alphabets, in the calligraphy of birds and plants. Short lines find their way into pathways, fragments return in cannibal tongues and singular scores. There is wonderful order here, and the work of encountering what it might continue to be, while the pelting of sounded and violent contradiction goes on. Listen to the stranger, to what flutters from mouths: you are here.”
– Carol Watts
Simon Howard, 1960–2013
-------------------------
At the start of this week, I learnt of the tragic, untimely death of the poet Simon Howard.
I didn’t really know him. We were Facebook ‘friends’ and spent time on one or two of the same online forums. We corresponded occasionally. We never met, and I feel immensely sad that now we never will. I don’t even have a face. I knew Simon only through his intelligence, his immense musical sensitivity and his fierce anger at an unjust world.
I can only claim to know his poetry a little, like that of many of his peers in fact. On the odd occasions when I did reveal my utter ignorance and call out for assistance, Simon was exceedingly generous in providing reading lists, links, thoughts and guidance. Generosity is a word that many have used since his passing. I must have assumed that he would always be around for that sort of help, and that I would always be able to catch up eventually as a result. Many of his poems are archived on his blog Walking In the Ceiling; others have been published by (among others) Knives Forks and Spoons (including the brilliant Numbers), Oystercatcher Press and Red Ceilings Press.
Simon’s words rang beyond the small circles of the London poetry scene. His extraordinary affinity for music – he was one of the most well-listened people I think I have known, and certainly among non-musicians – attracted many composers to his poetry. Among those I know to have set or referenced his work in theirs are Richard Barrett, Philip Venables, Philipp Blume and Robert Dahm, but I’m sure there are more. There is talk of a possible tribute concert, and if more details arise I will post them here.
Critics on his final work, 'Wrecked'
-------------------------
“Simon Howard’s poetry has the rare quality of evoking ‘images’ whose ‘sonic’ component is as memorable as (and indistinguishable from) the visual – and not because musical references are threaded through the poems; rather, everything in this poetry emerges from an obsessive sensitivity to a music which is not just ‘in’ the words but surrounds and informs them, in ways that no other poetry I know can do.”
– Richard Barrett
“All my fascist uncles / all my cannibal nieces
& wonderfully a multitude of green butterflies flutters from our stony mouths
The lines give a sense of the breadth of Howard’s landscape. A landscape of stones, of green LED lights, the screen, keyboard clicks, domesticity, songbirds somewhere. Quiet terror, silent determination, endless waiting. Eerie as Hegel, peaceful as unrest. Wrecked is a remarkable chronicle, a calm refusal of the implosive Tory apocalypse.”
– Sean Bonney
“Wrecked is a collection sewn tightly with ephemeral, vivid dreamscapes that dart from butterflies to the odd polar bear. The transience of nature is contrasted with signifiers of everyday life such as chairs, cupboards and cigarillos. Complete with a Teutonic instrument that continues to lure the reader further in, it is a book in which the musicality remains with the reader well after it is finished. Each word is packed with a precision that would make the most attentive of double bass players blush. London Town may be invisible, but Wrecked’s charm and cohesion is there for all to see.”
– Sarah Crewe
“Read outside, through the damage. These lyrics ring out vestiges of song in silent alphabets, in the calligraphy of birds and plants. Short lines find their way into pathways, fragments return in cannibal tongues and singular scores. There is wonderful order here, and the work of encountering what it might continue to be, while the pelting of sounded and violent contradiction goes on. Listen to the stranger, to what flutters from mouths: you are here.”
– Carol Watts
Displaying 1 of 1 review