Gareth Farr premiere: Where Will They Bury My Bones
The premiere of Gareth Farr’s latest composition had an opulent setting far from New Zealand. The composer was delighted. “It looks as if it were filmed in Buckingham Palace!” he laughed. “I love the glimpses of night-time London through those big windows.”
Where Will They Bury My Bones for baritone, string quartet and piano was filmed in the banqueting room of the historic Fishmongers’ Hall overlooking the River Thames in London. The premiere screening was part of the Auckland Arts Festival on March 19, the second anniversary of New Zealand’s first COVID lockdown in 2020.
London-based New Zealand baritone Julien van Mellaerts sings the solo vocal part. He worked closely with Farr and Melbourne-based Kiwi librettist Paul Horan and says the story is very personal to all three of them. “Throughout the pandemic we all felt isolation from home or from one another. I lost my grandad and my first music teacher and was unable to travel back. This is our love letter to New Zealand, expressing our pride that we carry wherever we are in the world. Recording it with a group of largely Kiwi musicians in London was touching and magical – I’ll never forget it.”
Van Mellaerts is a prize-winning baritone with a wide vocal range and a beautiful light upper register which he uses here with great delicacy and feeling. He communicates the nostalgia of the piece with a kind of passionate restraint, the text impeccably clear and the pain and sadness of the story deeply touching.
Baritone Julien van Mellaerts
…great delicacy and feeling.
Photo credit: Sofia Castillo
In fact, the whole performance is outstanding. Clever filming uses artful camera angles to feature the well-matched ensemble of top musicians accompanying van Mellaerts. Violinist Ben Baker, another London-based New Zealander, leads the group of string quartet and piano, which includes Kiwi cellist Matthias Balzat and Christchurch-born violinist Kate Oswin. “Most of these musicians were unable to come home for a long time,” says Farr.
Three instrumental interludes separate four verses, each of which ends with a refrain. The half-hour work demonstrates Farr’s intuitive feel for chamber writing. In the first interlude, for instance, beautiful sounds drop into musical space, with luxurious gleaming piano timbres, a limpid, soulful melodic line in the cello and the other strings oscillating in a musical texture that creates a hushed, reverent atmosphere.
Composer Gareth Farr
…intuitive feel for chamber writing.
Horan was initially thinking of a kind of requiem, but as the work developed the expressive intent shifted. “It’s morphed into a very, very romantic piece,” says Farr. “The title is stark but musically it’s about striving for something you can’t quite grasp, about homesickness and dislocation. The final verse, Hiraeth - a Welsh word meaning yearning - ends with the poignant words ‘Nowhere is/Ever more than nine seas away.’”
“By the time COVID had taken hold, it had to be a film,” says Farr. “And it looks stunning! Online presentation is here to stay, we all need to get better televisions and sound systems and get used to it.” The premiere showing remains online (see YouTube link below).
Where Will They Bury My Bones by Gareth Farr (composer) and Paul Horan (librettist) performed by Julien van Mellaerts (baritone), Ben Baker and Kate Oswin (violins), Charlotte Bonneton (viola), Matthias Balzat (cello), James Baillieu (piano), filmed by TallWall Media in London. Premiere screening hosted by Auckland Arts Festival and RNZ Concert, March 19-27. Watch on YouTube here
A shorter version of this article, previewing the premiere, appeared in the NZ Listener in March 2022.