Towards a not yet remembered past

The notion of contemporaneity - being of the present time, and by implication ‘new’ - has been something of a core belief for many composers and artists of recent times. Maybe those of earlier times too? Yet if one thing is clear it is that the present soon becomes the past, and the new quickly becomes the old… Surely we are seeking something deeper than newness in our musical experiences? Notation and recording open windows onto other times and places, bringing them into our present, and allowing them - if only for a fleeting glimpse - to live once more. Similarly, the presentation and transformation of that which already exists can become a basis for renewal.

This piece continues a line of reflection about time and place present in all my previous works for the string quartet. The title of my 2020 quartet, This present moment used to be the unimaginable future, drew attention the the remarkable unlikeliness (despite the quotidian quality of most experience) of the here and now in which we exist; time seen as a lens through which wonders - and lessons - might be revealed.My Songbooks, on the other hand, focus more concretely on the overtone-singing traditions of Tuva and Sardinia - musical materials from unfamiliar places (I have never been to either, though I’ve heard many recordings of the music), filtered through the familiar medium of the quartet. The medium changes, but is also changed by, the message contained within the source material. 

Taking tentative steps towards the future, Towards a not yet remembered past… looks back to the late 14th Century, framing three ‘original’ movements based on my own materials with four re-imaginings (variously varied transcriptions) of music by some of my favourite Medieval composers Solage, Senleches, Machaut and Baude Cordier. These works, with the exception of Machaut's Puis qu’en oubli, are to be found in the remarkable Codex Chantilly, a major sources for the so-called ars subtilior, which testifies to this period of imaginative flourishing by transmitting to us this music of playful wit, melodic beauty and rhythmic complexity. My appreciation of this music has been aided by the many marvellous and remarkably diverse recorded interpretations: my working playlist includes eleven versions of Solage, four of Senleches, six of Baude Cordier and ten of Machaut! Listening to these it becomes clear that these pieces are not fixed objects, but seeds of possibility which grow differently depending on the manner of cultivation. Meanwhile, the three ‘new’ movements share a common longing for an imagined elsewhere.

This piece is dedicated to Nicola LeFanu.

(Christian Mason, January 2025)