Geoffrey King

Metrodorus of Lampsacus

An extraordinary day, yesterday, because of a remarkable dream in the afternoon. I drifted off to sleep after lunch, as I often do, but this time it was a long sleep of perhaps two hours. In the dream I heard the end of the piece I am working on and it was very different to what I had already written. So when I awoke I went to my desk and altered what I had. There is now a sort of battle between two minor triads, with loud thumps on drums.  A minor and G# minor, with G# winning the struggle.

In the evening I went to work and there was that small Asian who is a Christian preacher. He has tried everything he knows to get through to me. Today it was a hand on my shoulder and “I bless you, I really do”, together with “Jesus loves you”. We sat down and began to speak, though these people don’t converse, they just tell you the “good news” and hope you will give up your obstinance and immediately declare fealty to the Lord. No chance.

So against my better judgement I finally said “I am gay and your God obviously didn’t create me because he makes clear in the Bible what he feels about that”. I watched him carefully and my point hit him hard and he was aghast. It was only a micro-second but I saw him flinch. (I am good at reading people like this  -  one of my God-given talents, along with the ability to fall in love with my own sex……). But this guy is a smoothy. He recovered quickly and rather uncertainly started on about homosexuality and sin (“God hates the sin but loves the sinner”). I cut him short.

Before arriving home I called in the café at the end of the street and ordered a dark beer and some nuts. Very nice. I sat there feeling good. It was late and the waiters and waitresses were fussing about cleaning and getting ready to close. Two boys from the kitchen staff were also getting ready to leave and as they were going to and fro they kept stopping in front of a huge mirror and preening themselves as if they were in their own bathrooms. Muslim boys. Absolutely weird and embarrassing  -  the open vanity. Well I once said to Hamish that Moroccans could be the Italians of Holland if they could just dump their religion. I see that I was right. Instead of which they……….well, let’s not get on to that subject.

One final thought occurred to me before I headed home. That I should have been born in ancient Greece as I like both men and philosophy………

Old Town Edinburgh from Calton Hill, G.W.Wilson 1870s

Hamish is my closest friend, albeit a fairly grumpy one. He has seen much of my joy and sorrow and commented on nearly all of what he has seen. There has been plenty of laughter along the way. It is now over 20 years since I left Edinburgh but the connection with him has grown stronger, not weaker. Artistic matters are the most personal of all and I have been able to discuss these with him, but not so candidly with others. Like everyone, I am guarded about what is most personal. Yet I have the necessary release of being able to share my private world with this one friend.

Though Hamish is not a musician, he hears me out on my ideas for writing music, saying what he finds positive and what he finds negative. And this is good as one wishes in any case to reach out to a public that does not comprise simply fellow composers. Our music descends into a purely professional activity if we are not careful. We speak to each other like doctors whose jargon excludes the general public. Yet music is intended for that general public just as much as medicine is. Indeed, is it not a sort of medicine? At college, where one sits in the auditorium amongst fellow students, listening to the work of other students, one acquires a taste for “purely professional activity”.

So, in a long conversation last night I explained what I have been planning for the group in Venice I am writing for. It is a radical departure for me, though in a direction I have tried to travel before. There is a point of departure, a direction, a route, a goal, and all things must align themselves if the voyage is to happen. Yes, I can be honest and admit that I have spent a great deal of time hanging around the harbour “getting ready” whereas I was actually “getting into trouble” of various kinds. After I talked to Hamish and he approved my ideas, I felt a nice puff of wind in my sails and some forward momentum as a result.

Geoffrey King

I have just returned from a trip to Cologne. It was uplifting and even an inspiration. I decidedly did NOT want to go, as I am about as enthusiastic a traveller as your average cat…….yet, when I am dragged unwillingly somewhere, like some moaning moggy, I frequently find I interact with the new environment at quite a deep level. That was the case this time. And as I mention cats here let me pay tribute to my dear little cat Tybert (she was Tibby for short). Having dragged her off once on holiday to the countryside, she did her best to fit in, poor darling. I still remember her astonished wide eyes the moment she saw her first cow.

Michael Bonaventure

I found somewhere cheap to stay and also made the journey in the delicious ICE train, so really I had no cause for complaint and should not have had to listen to my own whining about it. How does one silence these inner voices by the way? Yes, death.

The occasion for the visit was a concert by the organist Michael Bonaventure  -  a brilliant one  -  which included a work of mine mixing organ sound with electronic sound: Forbidden Mansions.

Michael played nine pieces and there in the middle was mine. I recognized it as soon as it started up, even though I have rarely heard it since the premiere in 1985. My mother attended that concert and after the piece she had a little cry whilst I was taking my bow, so the composer Ian McQueen told me. I was astonished when I heard about that as the work is really pretty grim, but I guess it was mainly the occasion that touched her. But I am not going to give an opinion of the piece here  -  if my mother was moved by it, if anyone is, all well and good.

The churches were open in Cologne, so I stepped into a number of them and prayed. And there was no fuss on the door  -  that stupid museum mentality we have with English cathedrals was absent. Well, the Cologne diocese is extremely well funded, apparently, so that explains that. These are working churches and getting on with the activities they were designed for. Catholic of course, thank goodness. By the way, I worked out why Cologne Cathedral looks so weird  -  every inch is covered in decoration and it could therefore be some alien spacecraft just landed there. I didn’t go inside this time.

I enjoyed the shopping streets and also the politeness of people working in cafés and restaurants and markets. In the Café Elefant on Weißenburgstraße I wrote a card to Roderik de Man, whose tremendous piece Crosscurrents ended Michael’s recital. An Egyptian man came to sit by me just at that moment and talked a long time about his divorce and various troubles. At first I found him an interesting prospect and then gradually realized he was just giving a tedious recital of his woes. I excused myself politely and carried on my way.

Luiz Henrique Yudo

I was lost in Cologne late at night several times and reproached myself bitterly about it as I didn’t bother carrying the map I had bought. My way of protesting I suppose.

As Michael said, the Germans are “our tribe” and so for that reason I guess one feels very much at home. So nice to have people obeying all the traffic rules and many other nice instances of courtesy. We were with composer Luiz Yudo too and the three of us were wholly delighted by the entire ethos. I was not as enthusiastic as they were however about the meal we had in a “pig restaurant”. I seemed to have an entire buttock on my plate propped up by some mashed potato and sauerkraut…………

(photos Huw Morgan)

The news of the death of my colleague and friend, the harpsichordist Annelie de Man, arrived today in a letter from her husband, the composer Roderik de Man.

Let me say something about what I most admired about Annelie. She was a first rate musician, a world class harpsichordist. I loved the way she could speak her mind and tell the truth about what she believed. She was everlastingly enthusiastic and positive and energetic. She dedicated herself to lifting up her instrument to a new level. She reached out and helped other musicians. I myself wrote a piece for her that certainly wouldn’t exist otherwise and she recorded it.

Notwithstanding the grief which is shared by many, I want above all to say to Annelie herself, congratulations. You achieved so much in this life. God blessed you with a high intelligence and high talent but you matched that with hard work and dedication. He is well pleased with you, we can be sure about that.

In 1987/88, when I was (briefly) doing a composer-in-residence job in the north of England, I started going out with a guy I met there. He wasn’t a student but was that sort of age. He’d left school and was already working. I was cheating on my partner, who lived in another city far away, so I was feeling uneasy about that. One day the young guy told me his favourite singer was Tracy Chapman. I smiled at him sweetly thinking to myself: “Why am I with this moron who likes pop music?” I assumed directly that Tracy Chapman was some pop bimbo of the moment. But actually I didn’t know anything about her………….so my reaction was pure prejudice, pure snobbery. And, as I indicate, it was deceitful, because my thoughts were not “sweet”. In fact it was deceit within deceitfulness, given the circumstances. Crystalline deceit, lies reflecting from every wall…..

Today, nearly 23 years on, I watched a video of Tracy Chapman’s song “Fast Car”. I’d been attracted to this song which was coming over the radio at work and elsewhere. I didn’t know what it was and I decided to track it down. Imagine my surprise when I found out…..

I loved it. It’s gorgeous. She’s gorgeous.

It’s a long time to be mistaken about something, but realizing the error is not an unpleasant experience. On the contrary, it’s interesting. Suddenly discovering such a “mistake”, if that’s the correct word, half a lifetime later shines a light on my then ignorance. And it shines a light on my then prejudice and snobbery. Also it shines a light on now. I think I am “open” today but perhaps I am simply “closed” in new ways. Am I open, am I closed? Am I good, am I bad? The questions are not futile, just tricky.

“Know thyself” seems to be a saying featured in nearly every religious text. I am guessing though that to achieve such an understanding requires opening up your heart and seeing everything that is there..

Up at 7, showered and dressed, then running for the tram a little before 8 as I had decided beforehand to do. Today is the centenary of my mother’s birth [1909-1993] and she, the breadwinner of the house, was forever running for the bus early in the mornings - the stop was just across from our house. She had strong legs and could run well. (Her father, by the way, William Biggar [1877-1935], had been a footballer and it is pleasing to see that there are some little biographies of him on the Net). In my case it is not necessary to run, as the tram stop is out of sight around the corner. Nevertheless I ran for a while and then was pleased as I neared the stop to find that I actually DID have to run for real, as a no.12 came racing along. Heh-heh. Nice that it worked out as planned.

Into the centre of Amsterdam only to find it more or less deserted and nowhere much to have breakfast. This is decidedly NOT Italy. I settled eventually on a place in Rembrandtplein and ate a rather poor 8 euro ontbijt. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts. I bought some lilies on the way home and went back to bed. Contrary to expectation I had had a nightmare during the night. Something about me being guilty of murder and sought by the police…………..oh dear………….

But later I completed one of the other tasks for today. I went to the children’s zoo in Rembrandtpark to look at the poultry because my mother adored hens. I sat there a long time and covered several pages of ms paper - I had also written a page in the café in the morning. Indeed it is now certain that the only way I really like writing music is in this manner. I developed it for my Grand Sonata for 2 pianos and 6 percussion (2004). That had to be written in about 2 weeks. I map out some sort of structure, including silences by the way – this is very important, and then write notes at lightning speed.

The “finale” for today was meant to be a trip to the cinema (The Tushcinski) to see the new Harry Potter. But I couldn’t face another trip to the centre so instead I hired a video of the charming movie Minoes which served more or less the same purpose. My mother adored cats and also she had a nice feeling for this kind of fairy tale. Incidentally, my companion at breakfast was a black and white cat. She did that lovely cat thing in totally ignoring me, though I was sitting on the same chair as she was. I didn’t have much room but she, of course, was not going to shift for me. I had to smile.

What does one say about one’s mother? “Thank you” is never going to be enough. Nothing is enough. Nothing can ever repay the debt, except perhaps, as Michelle Obama often says, in the action of Giving Back. I do a bit of that, but nothing like enough.

Out early this morning to the shops. The youth behind the cash register in the Turkish butcher/grocer was completely tired and bored, just slumped there – he said he had got up at 5. I chatted to him a bit, but he wasn’t interested. No spinach for my Indian recipe, so I searched round the corner. Nothing doing. Cycling back, I saw the “tired” youth now outside in animated conversation. So I thought, it’s just ME that was boring, not he who was bored. Probably he finds middle aged men with sparkly inquisitive eyes boring. Can you blame him?

I ended up in the good Turkish café, where, to my surprise, I ordered lamb and aubergines preceded by lentil soup. And coffee on the side. Weird. I almost never eat breakfast and certainly not something so heavy.

I had music paper with me as I knew I would sit somewhere and write. My favourite way to write music is to sit at a table and not bother with an instrument. There was loud music playing and I thought it was funny to write my own stuff against that background. So as I put pen to paper I just incorporated the sound of singing into the instrumental lines I was writing. That was a first for me, but in other respects it went as usual – very fast, with no rest for my wrist.

It had begun to storm outside and after a while a man came in carrying his small daughter all wrapped up in a coat against the wind and rain. He set her on the floor and she looked thrilled to be in the place. He was very handsome, so I was eyeing him, then I saw how he handled his daughter and how he looked at her with such love, his eyes sparkling. It was lovely to see. He was manly, yet somehow sweet and pretty at the same time. She was very young and he couldn’t understand what she was saying to him. After a while he got bored and just let his eyes wander around the room, leaving her to prattle on about “her things”.

Because of the loud music, my mind drifted to thoughts of Mr Z. and the fuss he used to make if music started up in a restaurant. He would squirm and look pained. It was a look that invited you to DO SOMETHING NOW. You might suggest leaving or even decide to have a kind word with the waiter. Either way, having manipulated you into doing something, he would act as if it had been your idea. That memory flashed by and I thought I should have screamed at him “children are so hungry in Africa they don’t even have the strength to stand up and YOU WANT TO MAKE A FUSS ABOUT MUSIC IN A RESTAURANT???????????!!!!!!!!!!” I would have needed to pop in something like “WHY DON’T YOU STAY IN YOUR OWN FUCKING HOUSE?” to make the full effect. But he was 15 years older than me and the apple of my eye, so I thought he knew better than me. In any case, I couldn’t have brought him to his senses. He was way beyond even spoiled, he was half way to being a god. And there he was, his nose jammed in the smelly armpit of this terrible world with its piped music, the poor darling.

[How sensitive am I, I ask myself? The deep vulgarity of these times we are cursed to live through are too much for me sometimes. I feel the urge to flee to some rocky place where all you hear are the calls of seals, the cries of gulls and the moaning sound of wind and sea. The pitter-patter of rain and the ratatat of hail. Miles of grassy sods and not much else. Pebbles, sand, sun and moon.]

Concentrating so hard on my piece, the loudspeaker music was gradually blotted out and then it was all done. I wrote at the top of the page “good Turkish café 7th July 2009”. Then I thought that would make a nice title.

It was by this stage storming enormously. A woman hurried by – short dyed blond hair, neat tight jeans, and small umbrella in the process of getting destroyed……She had to hurry as she was frightened the wind and water would spoil her set piece………She might arrive looking like a wet dog – O the shame of it! Puddles formed, drops made circles and bubbles floated. I thought that would make a nice image for a title too. Then I remembered that the music I was busy with didn’t convey any of these things, it was just something formal in approach. The Turkish singing had been a starting point, but nobody would guess that, and puddles of water weren’t being reflected on my page either. Mostly when we stick a label on music we find it already has its own “text” thank you very much.

I thought about how this music compared with the first piece I wrote, when I was 14 – no improvisational element there, just chords and gestures worked out at the piano with clear metres, and very nice too. [I must make a neat copy of that and show it some pianists…………though best not to mention the juvenilia aspect.] I began to wonder if that piece was possibly more convincing then what I write nowadays, with my far superior technique. [Such positive thoughts about myself tend to arrive in the early mornings - one good reason for getting up…………..]

Cycled home and got half drenched. Heh-heh.