Mr Brown's Gigue - Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne

[gcoover]

Some pretty amazing composing and playing!

 

Gary

 

 

 

[Daniel Hersh]

Wow.

[doodle]

Wow! indeed and that's just the tip of his superb iceberg of talent, so to speak! 

[David Barnert]

Does anybody else in the world play real counterpoint on an anglo concertina?!

[gcoover]

The good news is that Cohen is currently working on a most excellent Anglo tutor, and yes, he does include several examples of how to do counterpoint accompaniment.

 

With luck, the book will be available in time for Christmas.

 

Gary

[David Barnert]

5 hours ago, gcoover said:

The good news is that Cohen is currently working on a most excellent Anglo tutor...

 

There’s also a CD in the works (see this thread). And, of course, if you haven’t seen the video linked in this thread, by all means, have a look.

[adrian brown]

On 8/21/2020 at 4:09 PM, David Barnert said:

Does anybody else in the world play real counterpoint on an anglo concertina?!

 

Well I think John Kirkpatrick started it on his first solo LP. He called it Gigue too, it being a four-part gigue by Johann Mattheson (1681 – 1764). I think there's a more recent recording of it by JK on the Anglo International cd set and Cohen played it too in his final recital at Leeds Uni.

 

Adrian

[adrian brown]

And there's a bit more to Cohen's Gigue than meets the eye:

 

When I saw that Cohen was offering to write "a bespoke tune" as a reward for sponsoring his crowd-funding campaign, I jumped at the chance. My expectations were that he'd write an "8+8 bars with repeats" dance melody, but what he's come up with is something of an entirely different complexity... As he wrote to me:

 

"Your tune I've written in the style of a four part Baroque gigue... I used the French musical cryptogram system to make the first 6 notes of the piece spell 'Adrian', 'Brown' is slightly less convincing musically when spelled out using this technique, but it is also in there somewhere in the second section. I tried to write it to be playable on your concertina layout, so hopefully you can have some fun with it."

 

I certainly will be having a lot of fun both learning and playing it, and being on a cycling holiday without a box was a bit frustrating when I first got the score and saw the video... It's a wonderful surprise in any case and I'm very thankful to him for all the thought and effort that went into it, way beyond the call of duty! I should also mention he's additionally written a 3/2 hornpipe - "Lady Borsch's Hornpipe" for Susanna (my other half and the wind section of Dapper's Delight).

 

Adrian

 

 

[David Barnert]

10 hours ago, adrian brown said:

Well I think John Kirkpatrick started it on his first solo LP. He called it Gigue too, it being a four-part gigue by Johann Mattheson (1681 – 1764). I think there's a more recent recording of it by JK on the Anglo International cd set and Cohen played it too in his final recital at Leeds Uni.

 

I have “Anglo International” around here, somewhere. Haven’t listened to it in years. In fact, I think the only CD player I still own is in my car. I guess I’ll have to take it for a drive and have another listen.

 

10 hours ago, adrian brown said:

"Lady Borsch's Hornpipe" for Susanna (my other half and the wind section of Dapper's Delight).

 

Well, there’s your “8+8 bars with repeats” (or 4+4, in this case of 3/2), but wow, what a performance!

[adrian brown]

I thought there might be some interest here in my interpretation of Cohen’s gigue, so here below is my first stab at recording it. I have used my baritone Anglo for the task - partly as it allows me to make the excuse of a rather more sedate tempo than Cohen’s blistering pace, as befits Mr. Brown's ageing frame! I think the baritone also brings out other qualities in the harmonic architecture of the piece and gives it a very different feel. All the same I must say it is a pretty relentless experience and gives one little time to relax, as Cohen said to me in a recent e-mail ”I've been using it recently as my warm up piece, it certainly gets all of the fingers working!”... 

 

 

So there you have it, a great new piece specifically composed for the Anglo concertina - not sure there are many of them and it’s certainly the only one I have any experience with, although I stand corrected if anybody knows of others? 

 

If anybody is interested in the sheet music, Cohen is happy to supply a copy for a small consideration and you can contact him either via a PM here, or via his website. I would think it’s an interesting piece for duet players to try and perhaps a few ITM players too? It’s written in D major, so I guess it's not far from their comfort zone?

 

I’d just like to thank Cohen again for his efforts in writing this for me and I hope other players will have as much fun as I have working on it.

 

Adrian 

[alex_holden]

Very nice.

[Ken_Coles]

Looks like more than 30 buttons on your baritone? That can help with music like this! Great!

 

Ken

[Jim Besser]

What Ken said.  A quick try suggested something more than a typical 30 button layout is critical. Plus talent, of course.

 

[adrian brown]

Yes, my baritone has 39 buttons (the "standard Jeffries 38" + one extra RH) and it does indeed make it easier especially if you want to play some sections more legato than than Anglo is usually associated with. However, I have just spent a happy hour playing slowly through the piece and imagining I only had a 30 button, (which in itself is not quite so easy as you might think!) and I think it is actually surprisingly doable on a 30 button Anglo.

 

The most obvious problem is that there are a number of low Ds in the score, but you could simply play these notes an octave higher without taking too much away. I was worried that the Wheatstone layout with only one c# in the middle octave would be a problem, but even this you can get around quite easily. There are many sequences where you would have to break the held notes in the other voices to accommodate the melody in a push-pull sequence, which would give the piece a different atmosphere, but would not necessarily take away from the musical effect and give it a more dance-like feel. This is quite unlike the renaissance pieces I have been playing around with, where every bellows reversal has to be well thought out in advance, in order not to completely destroy the musical effects.

 

One of the lovely things about playing a newly composed piece is that you can do anything with it. (Sorry Cohen - perhaps you don't entirely agree?...) I mean this in the sense that you are striking out in a new direction and an unspoiled musical landscape, so to a certain extent you can make up your own mind about certain choices, free of tradition, style etc. and have only the composer to upset 🙂

 

Cheers, and thanks for watching,

 

Adrian

[Robin Harrison]

 

Quote

One of the lovely things about playing a newly composed piece is that you can do anything with it. (Sorry Cohen - perhaps you don't entirely agree?...)

  I have a friend living  here in Paris who is a very fine composer of tunes in the Ontario fiddle style.

    I asked him the question about how he felt about other people's interpretations of his tunes.

     He replied that when he released them they were free and he was intrigued how others would interpret them and flattered that they  would.

        Robin 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Robin Harrison

[Kathryn Wheeler]

Gosh yes, I’d agree with the above though I think it’s always nice to try and contact the person who wrote it - if nothing else it’s nice to know   It’s a lovely feeling when that happens and always interesting to hear!