Microtonal Project’s Records are releasing a track monthly until the summer on all major streaming platforms. Richard Whalley’s Lud’s Church is the first:
Lud’s Church by Richard Whalley for 19-div trumpet- played by Stephen Altoft– and Multitrack recordings is now available on Spotify, Apple Music etc. It was produced by Donald Bousted and Vasiliki Kourti-Papamoustou.
‘Lud’s Church is a surprisingly deep chasm, hidden in the woodland of the Peak District in Staffordshire, England. It is dark, foreboding and damp, even in summer: an excellent hiding place – hence being associated with many stories and histories, including Robin Hood; and also Gawain and the Green Knight. Notably it is where a group of Christian reformers, followers of John Wycliffe, hid to escape persecution in the 15th century. It is thought that they sung psalms whilst hiding there, and it is speculated that their nickname, the ‘Lollards’ (or mutterers) refers to their style of delivery of such psalms – and this is how the chasm got its name.
Lud’s Church for 19-division trumpet and Multitracks, was the last place I visited for a hike before the first Covid-19 lockdown (in early 2020) made travel to such places impossible for a period. It was composed in a spirit of yearning for the freedom of exploration. Such exploration extends to the tuning system used here: 19 equal divisions of the octave, which results in a mix of familiarity and weirdness that seemed ideal for attempting to capture something of the essence of this magical place. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to write for Stephen Altoft’s 19-division trumpet, which prompted this musical exploration.’ (RW)
Richard Whalley is a composer and pianist living in Manchester, where he is a Senior Lecturer in Composition at the University of Manchester. His compositions take their inspiration from the passage of time and memory, analogies with visual art and sculpture, from geopolitics (e.g. the plight of refugees, the fallout from Brexit, the climate emergency) and – increasingly – from nature: physical processes which may be huge (e.g. glaciation and erosion of mountains) or microscopic (e.g. looking in detail at the structure of plants). As a pianist he regularly performs classical and contemporary music as a soloist and ensemble player and has given numerous premieres.