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two-hats-or-one-the-co-dependent-worlds-of-jonathan-harveys-church-and-concert-music.pdf (1.23 MB)

Two hats or one: the co-dependent worlds of Jonathan Harvey's church and concert music

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-10, 04:40 authored by Ed HughesEd Hughes
This article scrutinises the composer Jonathan Harvey’s remark that ‘most of my colleagues see me as wearing two hats: one a church music composer’s, the other an avant-garde instrumental/electronic composer’s. I wish I could say it was one hat. I think of all my music as sacred in a sense’. The article considers Harvey’s church and concert works as linked worlds in order to propose a more holistic appreciation of his stylistic and technical innovations and that, far from being occasional pieces, his music for the church played an active role in the development of the composer’s language, in part because singing was a formative experience for Harvey, and in part because collaborative work with choirs, church musicians, and associated artists and thinkers, was so frequently fertile. Based on the composer’s own notes to the author, the article concludes with an account of the composition process involved in the creation of Plainsongs for Peace and Light (2012), a work for unaccompanied mixed choir or sixteen solo voices, which the composer described as ‘elaborations’ of chant.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Tempo (London, 1939): a quarterly review of modern music

ISSN

0040-2982

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Issue

303

Volume

77

Page range

58-76

Department affiliated with

  • Music Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2022-09-07

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2023-01-16

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2022-09-07

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