Composer John Metcalfe reconstructs holiday classics
John Metcalfe \u2014 Carols Without Words (Platoon)
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New Classical Tracks - John Metcalfe
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\u201cI\u2019m similar to Jim Carrey in Yes Man, where saying yes to everything can lead you to extraordinary situations,\u201d says New Zealander violist, composer and arranger John Metcalfe. \u201cAnd of course, if you don't try it and don't say yes, you'll never know. I've rarely turned anything down at all, ever.\u201d\xa0
That\u2019s how Metcalfe landed gigs with rock artists like U2, Coldplay and Peter Gabriel.\xa0Now he lives in Oxford and says he\u2019s as British as the next person. However, his spiritual home is still New Zealand, where he grew up surrounded by music. His father was an operatic tenor. However, Metcalfe\u2019s new recording, Carols Without Words, is all instrumental.
\u201cMuch of the music I've written for my solo projects tend to be instrumental. I wonder if this might be pushing things a little bit too far, but I had wondered occasionally whether it was too painful to write for voice because it would have reminded me of my father, who passed when I was 11. Perhaps I was avoiding that when writing instrumental music. It allows you to wander, use your imagination and have your emotional response.\u201d
Can you talk about how you re-created these carols to the point where they are almost unrecognizable?
\u201cI composed from the inside out. I come to the melody last. When writing music, I often start writing from a perspective of sonics and texture. The point about the melody disappearing is quite deliberate because, particularly with some of the slower, more ambient reworkings, it was a deliberate attempt to make the melody disappear. I wanted to allow people to have their own memory. Perhaps they remember the melody of \u2018Silent Night,\u2019 but they're not engaged in listening to it.\u201d
Is there a special memory in any of this music?
\u201cIf I were to push it, I would say it was the first Christmas after my father had died. That's the memory that springs to me when I've been listening to some gentler versions of these melodies.\u201d\xa0
Can you talk about your arrangement of \u2018O Come, O Come, Emmanuel\u2019?
\u201cIt is a haunting melody, so I didn't want to do away with that completely. I performed that absolutely on its own at the start of the carol, to say, \u2018Here is the material and now we're off to the races.\u2019\u201d\xa0
Which carol presented the biggest challenge for you?
\u201cIt probably was \u2018In the Bleak Midwinter.\u2019 All of the others were very quick to do. They took care of themselves. \u2018In the Bleak Midwinter\u2019 yielded its secrets much more slowly.\u201d
Watch now
To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or\xa0download the extended podcast on iTunes\xa0or wherever you get your podcasts.
Resources
John Metcalfe \u2014 Carols Without Words (Amazon digital)
John Metcalfe (official site)