ALAN PAGE: "THE WORLD GOES NONE THE LAMER" FOR SOPRANO AND OFFSTAGE ENSEMBLE OP.5 (1995)

Composed for a Conservatoire Composer Song Concert, this setting of Housman's poem has been uploaded at the request of the singer. If there are copyright issues involved over my use of the poem I am quite happy to remove it.

I have always loved the poetry of Housman and his voice speaks for me in so many ways. Here what struck me was the sense of lonely isolation from an uncaring humanity and I wanted the setting to reflect this.

I was not particularly interested in doing a straight singer/piano rendition and I therefore decided to place the accompaniment in a totally different room to the singer.The staging here therefore was the Soprano singing alone onstage with the ensemble outside the performance hall playing in a mini foyer. I make this clear as the recording tends to flatten the effect.

The result is a kind of tragi-comic work which depends on which line you listen to. At the end of this performance an enthusiastic fellow student composer came up to me and said I was an absolute bastard: "You made me sit here listening to her, when all I wanted to do was join the party next door."

The ensemble were instructed to play their part "as mindlessly as possible" and to make as much noise as they wanted. They did so wonderfully. I stood between the two rooms and gave the appropriate cues and then just watched the work play itself keeping an eye on both parts. As my friend put it, the audience didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The performers here are Joanne Whiteoak (sop) with the "Odds and Sods Ensemble" directed by myself.




This, aside from "Syngenesis IV" was my last contribution to the Conservatoire Composers concerts. The "Requiem" was still being composed and sketches for a String Quartet and a piece for String Orchestra led nowhere.

I remain eternally grateful to the place for giving me the freedom to hear my work and experiment in the way I did.

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