British composer James Weeks (b.1978) presents windfell, an hour long composition for violin and voice written for and performed by Canadian violinist Mira Benjamin. Released by Another Timbre in May 2019, this extended solo work evokes the image of a violin alone on a remote hill, played only by the wind. Benjamin requested Weeks write a long duration piece for her. The challenge of making something for a single player over the span of an hour led Weeks to find ways to enrich the timbral and harmonic palette by considering it as a piece for Mira rather than a piece for violin. They experimented with singing and whistling, with Benjamin also providing soft vocals alongside her violin playing.
windfell arose from an image of the violin surrounded by space and open air, high up and remote. On this wind fell, the breeze moves over the instrument's surfaces, sets the open strings in motion, leaves brush across the strings as the wind catches them. A sounding out of the instrument, its body and materials, by the natural environment in which it rests.
The piece progresses slowly from particle through dyad and then to chord, using an evolving palette of timbral and harmonic material that resolves with long sequences of Just Intonation three part chords. Details converge with introspective spontaneity as the smallest gesture from Benjamin takes on vast significance. The breathy sound colors immediately preceding each note reveal the human element in play, the tone itself finishing in a space between anticlimax and afterthought, as if notes emerge embryonic but fully formed from miniscule spaces whose import only becomes clear when pitch supplants the life breath imbuing it.
Weeks received a traditional English musical education, starting as a cathedral chorister as a child. Composers like Aldo Clementi, Chris Fox and Chris Newman became important to him, and he found creative freedom in the conceptual spaces between traditionally notated and improvised music, as well as through paring down materials to the bare minimum. His work appears on several labels including Wandelweiser, HCR, NMC and New Focus, and has been performed by ensembles including Quatuor Bozzini, EXAUDI, Explore Ensemble, Apartment House and London Sinfonietta. He has won a British Composer Award (2018) and an Ivors Composer Award (2019).
windfell was developed across a year of collaboration and premiered at Music We'd Like To Hear in October 2017, with additional performances at Durham University's Klang series. Recorded at St Paul's Hall, Huddersfield by Simon Reynell, this release captures Benjamin's gorgeously ethereal performance, rendering notions of internality and externality blissfully irrelevant. Essential listening for anyone interested in extended duration works, Just Intonation, and the exploration of timbre and space in contemporary composition.
