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Canvas Null

from Speech Songs by Haworth Hodgkinson

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about

A poet might normally take a minute or so to read a poem, so most of my pieces based on spoken poetry have been, for me at least, uncharacteristically short. "Canvas Null" was my first attempt to produce something longer based on the spoken word. Two composers, Pete Stollery and Ross Whyte, had both recommended to me a piece of software that is able to stretch sounds to great length without lowering the pitch, and I tried using this to stretch a recording of Catriona Yule reading her poem "Behind the Canvas". In the original recording she took a little over a minute to read the text – in my version it is stretched to about 15 minutes. I was fascinated by the way the slowing down reveals the melodic content of the speech patterns, and also by the way the natural pauses at the ends of lines became huge dramatic silences. I let the rhythm of the poem dictate the pacing of my piece, and decided to add some slowly shifting keyboard harmonies to support the melody of the voice and to fill those dramatic pauses.

As I worked on this piece I became aware of many layers of influence, and I like to think they can all perhaps be detected in some small part in the end result. Catriona's poem was a response to a poem by Paulina Vanderbilt, itself in response to a Pablo Picasso painting called "Woman Ironing". Picasso in turn was responding to paintings of women ironing by Edgar Dégas. Apparently, X-rays reveal that Picasso painted his woman over the top of a portrait of an unknown man. My keyboard harmonies are based on music I wrote to accompany Hans Arp's poem "Opus Null" in "Warten auf Goethe", a University of Aberdeen German Drama Society production celebrating German poetry, staged to mark the Goethe anniversary in 1999. I took one word of my title from Catriona and one from Hans Arp.

In this piece I think I hear the spirit of all these women, freed – for 15 minutes, at least – from the drudgery of their ironing.

lyrics

Behind the Canvas

These grey angular lines,
elbow chiselled to the core.
Who looks after these
calloused hands,
anoints the cracks?

Watch her face darken
as she strains across my gaze.
Each crease is hers to bare.
And on she grafts,
each breath of the iron

bearing her down
with the weight of
centuries on her back.
Is it the fate of woman
to never become woman?

Watch as the light flickers
on and off in those grey eyes;
how she steels herself in
the late hours, her dignity
tight in her fist.

And if a splash of water
should moisten her cheek,
roll beneath her chin,
to cling there
like an undiscovered pearl,

I would not tell a soul.

© Catriona Yule
from Shedding Skin (Koo Press, 2007)

credits

from Speech Songs, released October 25, 2015
Music composed, performed and recorded by Haworth Hodgkinson, 2013, with the voice of Catriona Yule.

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Haworth Hodgkinson image

Haworth Hodgkinson Scotland, UK

Composer, improviser and sound artist based in Aberdeenshire and inspired by the landscapes of the North of Scotland. Solo performances often combine poetry with live music. Has worked on many collaborations with writers, dancers, actors, musicians and visual artists. ... more

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