I had to search for the piece to find out how long ago it was that I wrote it! 15 years! I was very surprised. The writing process is mostly a mystery to me now, but the performances that I’ve seen (all with Colin Currie playing; nobody else has taken it up, which isn’t a problem for me as I really feel that it’s Colin’s piece and probably always will be) have all been exceptional.
Colin and I were both very taken with the première above all. It was an extraordinary moment for both of us. Colin’s parents were there and his mother, Elizabeth, particularly reported that ‘I loved the ghosts’, beaming from ear to ear: one of my favourite reactions to any of my pieces. Colin has, of course, recorded it with the Hallé and Nicolas Collon for NMC. I was very pleased with it and was present at the recording.
Working on the piece was a joy and Colin gave me carte blanche as regards the nature and subject matter of the piece, but I told him about the backstory of it and we got together so I could play him what there was at that stage of the writing (on the computer). I knew that I could be as virtuosic as was necessary and we spent a good three hours choosing the instruments for the table that he sits at during what I suppose is the cadenza. He told me that after I left that session he lay on the sofa and fell asleep, exhausted. It reminded me how percussionists have to be really adept at playing hundreds of radically different instruments and not just, for example, the violin or oboe as most musicians have to be. It’s a special piece for me out of all my pieces and it felt, and still feels, like a privilege to have been asked by Colin to write it for him.
Read Colin’s BBT blog about a table of noises here