Chamber Music

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One of the languages that inspired this rewriting of the Chamber Music poems. I’m referring specifically to the folky, guitar-playing, ballad-singing individual whose work and image continue to feature so strongly within modern popular music. Clearly, that older model (singer and accompanist) hasn’t been lost entirely: but the invocation of a more modern tradition (which itself draws in some respects on the idea of the ‘minstrel’) brings a range of different things to the table. And it’s the strength and the beauty of that tradition – one singer, one guitar, one song – which we’ve attempted to draw on here. David Mowat’s Comprivations, performed at Saint Stephen’s Church on Bloomsday, combines musical improvisation and readings of Joyce.

Canadian punk band Nomeansno forms, originally consisting of brothers Rob and John Wright. Rob Wright is reportedly a huge fan of Joyce and at least one of the band’s album covers is said to contain a Finnegans Wake quote. (If you know which album has the quote, please get in touch!) Named after a line from Ulysses, The Sweets of Sin release their eponymous debut album with Jarra Hill Records. Joyce’s poetry book Pomes Penyeach was set to music by in a collection of arrangements published as the Joyce Book, edited by Herbert Hughes. The composers were Ernest Jones Moeran, Arnold Bax, Albert Roussel, Herbert Hughes, John Ireland, Roger Sessions, Arthur Bliss, Herbert Howells, George Antheil, Edgardo Carducci, Eugene Goossens, CW Orr, and Bernard Van Diere. As Joyce remarked: “The best is Molyneux Palmer. After him are [Ernest Jones] Moeran and [Arthur] Bliss.” (Over the course of three decades Irish opera composer Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer set Chamber Music to music, but the majority of his settings were not discovered until the 1980s.) James Joyce Centre has the story. Some of the songs can be found on YouTube; many of the songs can also be found on the Pomes Penyeach album released in 1987 by the Musical Heritage Society. (see also Antheil, 1933) Musique concrète pioneer Otto Luening composes his Joyce Cycle, based on Joyce’s poems. Luening was a friend of Joyce in Zurich, where they worked together on Joyce’s theatre company the English Players.

Poetic Contexts

Rapper Vince Staples includes the lyric “I write the James Joyce/ Don’t need the Rolls Royce” in his song “ Loco” off his Prima Donna EP. Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Requiem für einen jungen Dichter (Requiem for a Young Poet) includes text from Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. Dr. Strangely Strange’s album Kip of the Serenes includes a setting of Joyce’s poem “ Strings in the Earth and Air“. (see Robin Williamson, 1972) Martyn Bates set Chamber Music to music, released in two volumes. The first volume appeared in 1996 on the Sub Rosa record label. (see 1996, 2017) John Cage’s solo organ piece ASLSP takes its title from the Wake. Written on the score of the piece: “The title is an abbreviation of ‘as slow as possible.’ It also refers to ‘Soft morning, city! Lsp!’ the first exclamations in the last paragraph of Finnegans Wake (James Joyce).” By deduction Cage’s 1987 adaptation of ASLSP— a 24-hour piece entitled Organ²/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible)— also takes its name from the Wake. (see 1942, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1993, 1998, 2001)

John Ellis’s album One Foot In The Swamp includes the songs “Work in Progress” and “Michael Finnegan”, which may be references to the Wake? On her album Viaggio In Italia, Italian artist Alice covered Syd Barrett’s version of “ Golden Hair“. (see Barret, 1970; Slow Dive, 1991) The River Has Many Voices cites Joyce as an inspiration for his songwriting: “Books and poems have been some of my favorite music. They reach a depth of musicality that much music is too limited to reach… James Joyce showed me how the number of chords are endless in prose.” Composer Robert Paterson’s A New Eaarth warns about the dangers of climate change with relying on “poems and quotes from around the world, including texts by Wendell Barry, James Joyce, Percy Bysshe Shelly and William Wordsworth. The text and poems allude to the four ancient, classical elements—earth, air, fire and water.” Melanie O’Reilly’s celtic-jazz album Ceol Ceantair/District Music is inspired in part by the work James Joyce.

Celebrated composer Donald Martino writes Three Songs, a setting of Joyce’s poems “Alone”, “Tutto e sciolto”, and “A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight”. (see 1951) The song “ Helpless Corpses Enactment“, on metal band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s album In Glorious Times, is written entirely with lyrics from Finnegans Wake. Composer Michael Hynes’s “ The softest mourning” is based on the closing lines of Finnegans Wake. (see 1997)