Judith Weir - Storm - Magic

Kiell:

It sounds like it’s almost time for me to go onstage.

You’d better go and take your seat!

_Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him

When he comes back; you demi-puppets that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew… I have bedimmed

The noontide sun… graves at my command

Have waked their sleepers, opened, and let them forth._

Those poetic words were written by William Shakespeare hundreds of years ago for his play, The Tempest. His plays were, and still are, performed here at The Globe in London, and all over the world.

The Tempest inspired composer Judith Weir to write this music, called Storm.

A tempest is a fierce storm, and the play begins with one created by a powerful wizard.

The main characters are shipwrecked on a mysterious island full of magical spirits and monsters. On the island the characters find love, meet long lost family and, as Judith Weir says, “through the exercise of mercy, their quarrels are healed”.

Judith, what was it about The Tempest that inspired you to write Storm?

Judith:

The Tempest is a play by Shakespeare, and it has so many words in it about music. It seems like Shakespeare really wanted to hear music all through the play.

I don’t have any actors, but I could get some singers and some instruments so I thought that I could make own little version of The Tempest.

Kiell:

So, talk to me about the instruments that you use for this piece.

Judith:

One day I was walking around, I just saw outside a couple of old oil drums somebody had left in the street. Needless to say, being a composer, I went up and hit them to see what kind of sound they made, and they were great, they were very echoey. So, that made me start thinking what kind of instruments, what kind of stuff would be washed up on a beach like we have got in The Tempest, which is set on an island.

And we’ve got instruments like, it’s called a guiro - it’s in fact a South American instrument – but it’s like a dried-up husk of a, say a coco pod, or something like that – makes great sounds.

Kiell:

This movement is called Magic. Magic is an important theme for The Tempest, isn’t it?

Judith:

Magic is a huge theme in The Tempest because the main character, thjs man called Prospero, he was a Duke, he was the Duke of Milan but he also, his biggest interest was magic, and he spent apparently years and years studying it. Now he lives on the island, he uses magic to his advantage.

Prospero’s words say a lot about the strange creatures that live on the island. For instance, he says something about at midnight all sorts of mushrooms appear, he says there are elves, kind of fairies and goblins. We don’t know exactly what they’re like, but I imagine them being sometimes quite terrifying, scary creatures. So, I give a lot of work to the high piccolos because I think that gives some description of what the kind of sounds these strange creatures would make.

But also, I think magic is maybe something very beautiful. At times, he casts these magic spells and maybe the island is bathed in a special light. As if you were a painter, you could use every single colour in the world.

Kiell:

Judith Weir creates a magical world through music and brings every element of a play to life - without actors.

What kind of world would you create? And how would you make it sound magical?