February 2025: my long-running collaboration with Trifarious finally saw the light of day before a paying audience at St Nicholas’ Church, Longparish in Hampshire’s Test Valley.
Retroperspective is a project that Trifarious and I have been developing since 2020! The aim is to present arrangements of (broadly defined) ‘classical’ music by composers both familiar (Bach, Beethoven) and unfamiliar (Louis Couperin, Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Lillian Elkington, Chiquinha Gonzaga) in a way that suits a broad audience including seasoned concert-goers and those new to, or wary of, classical recitals. As Retroperspective has evolved it has taken on a more multi-media aspect and now incorporates lighting, video, found audio and electronics all controlled with an Ableton push MIDI controller.
The driver of the technology has been Trifarious’ saxophonist/clarinettist, Tim Redpath. I’ve been constantly amazed at how Tim has been able to match the ambition of his ideas as they emerged: green screen – no problem, drone footage – done, multitrack recording synced to the live parts via click track – easy! This hasn’t meant a completely smooth process nor, indeed, a glitch free first performance but the technology we have used has allowed us to expand Trifarious’ resources beyond their wind/string duo line-up and to place the arrangements in vivid audiovisual contexts.
If the audience reaction in Longparish was anything to go by, we are on the right track. I am used to polite applause and one or two warm words after first performances but Tim, Rachel and I all sensed a genuine enthusiasm for what we had presented, perhaps helped by the standing ovation! Despite this success there is a process of refinement to undertake: we need to work on making the transitions between pieces completely seamless with no break in either sound nor image and we need to give the Gonzaga arrangement a nip and tuck (probably adding in a reworking of Dvorak’s American quartet); the arrangement of Beethoven’s symphony no. 5 first movement could also be more radical with more attention to sound design, integration of Beethoven’s many sketches and/or Schenker’s famous analytical graph of the piece. Finally there is the small matter of interesting a diverse selection of venues up and down the country in our project, then applying for funding to allow us to tour! More news as and when I have it.
