Like most viol players I did not start out on the instrument but did my first tertiary degree as a modern cellist.  Perhaps for this reason I’ve always been concerned not to become exclusively focused on old music: to keep my musical options open.  Almost since forming “The Marais Project” some 13 years ago I have been commissioning Australian composers and arrangers.  So when we Cathy Upex, Shaun Ng, Imogen Granwal and I jointly founded the “Seaven Teares” viol consort I discussed with my colleagues my desire to continue this approach but in a manner acceptable to us all.

With this background in mind I was very excited when I met jazz saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Paul Cutlan earlier this year in a jazz bar and he told me he had just written a piece for string quartet.  Paul and I have been friends for years and I am a huge fan of his unbelievably musical and virtuosic horn playing.  My immediate response was, “Why don’t you write a piece for viol consort?”   Paul had never heard a viol consort live but we soon agreed that if he wrote a piece for “Seaven Teares” he should appear with us and improvise on the bass clarinet.  A rehearsal with the consort a few weeks later confirmed that the combination would work well.  We played at 415hz as per normal and Paul at 440hz but he seemed to have no trouble finding which key he should improvise in and what mode we were playing at the time – and all without a score in front of him!

Seaven Teares consort

In some ways modern jazz or improvising musicians are the closest contemporary equivalents to the baroque musical journeymen we 21^st century early musicians so much admire.  Artists such as Bach, Handel, Telemann and Vivaldi were performers, teachers, composers, improvisers, theoreticians and teachers all at the same time and without seeming to baulk at the role boundaries that still seem to flummox many classical musicians today.  I’ve worked with some of the finest players in Australian jazz such as pianist Kevin Hunt, bassist Steve Elphick and Llew and Mara Kiek from the Mara! band so have seen up close just how talented and musically sophisticated jazz musicians are and how much I can learn from them.

Very soon after our successful rehearsal we approached musical philanthropist and Catholic Priest Father Arthur Bridge to support the project.  Father Arthur reacted enthusiastically and has formally commissioned Paul to compose a new work for viol consort and improvised bass clarinet to be premiered in Sydney at 3pm, 26 August at Sydney Conservatorium.  Most of the rest of the repertoire at this concert will be “traditional” but we’ve asked Paul to improvise with us on at least one other item.

Paul Cutlan’s background is fascinating.  Like me he originally trained as a mainstream classical musician but then learned jazz “on the job” as he reveals in the interview below with Philip Pogson.  He is widely recognised as one of Australia’s leading saxophonists and clarinetists and has toured the world several times over.  Paul’s early music credibility has recently taken an interesting track in that he has been asked to join fellow saxophonist Andrew Robson on his “Tallis Project” wherein Robson re-imagines the music of Thomas Tallis for the modern jazz idiom. The result of Robson’s first excursion in this vein can be heard on the CD “Bearing the Bell – The Hymns Of Thomas Tallis”, released by the ABC.  I can heartily recommend it.

Jennifer Eriksson on behalf of the  “Seaven Teares” consort.

Interview with Paul Cutlan

Philip Pogson (PP): Paul, what is the first thing that comes into your mind when I say “viol consort”?

Paul Cutlan (PC): The archetypical Elizabethan court dance… renaissance feasts… drinking wine out of a goblet…funny hats!

PP: Can you tell us the most interesting thing about working with the viols as opposed to some of the other ensembles you play with?

PC: The very refined lustre of their timbre is an inspiration. I feel the vibration of the consort is like a living bed of sound. I’ve long been intrigued by the purity of the string tone without vibrato – a delicate but rich sound which has proven friendly for my bass clarinet. The viola da gamba in particular is an amazing instrument, with its seven strings, ranging from bass to treble registers!

PP: You originally trained as a classical clarinetist.  What was the path from there to jazz and improvised music?

PC: I grew up in Tasmania and had initial exposure to improvising at high school, but then I went to the Con in Hobart, where neither sax nor jazz was taught at the time. I trained as an orchestral clarinet player and had early experience in the TSO and elsewhere, but knew I wanted to take on jazz and the sax. That path was more informal, via listening and help from mentors on the scene – a process accelerated in Sydney, with numerous jam sessions and heaps of listening.

PP: Composition seems always to have been a part of your musical life.  What or who have been your key influences as a composer?

PC: Benjamin Britten and Stravinsky were key influences, followed by Bartok, Shostakovich and many other early 20th century composers. I was very taken with Stravinsky’s fascination with early music, reflected in pieces like his Mass, Cantata, Agon and Canticum Sacrum. My contact with great jazz groups around Sydney has been invaluable too, as well as my experience of Balkan music with the band that has nourished me the most: Mara!.

PP: It seems to have been forgotten that up to the middle of the 19th century many of the great classical composers were also stylish improvisers from Bach to Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and even Chopin.  Then until recent times the tradition seemed to die out except for particular instruments such as the organ.

Do you have any theories on why so many classical musicians avoid improvising?

PC: Perhaps it’s easier to recreate performance styles and practices based on the combination of scores which have come down to us, combined with performance treatises etc. There’s something permanent there to grasp. Improvisation is so ephemeral and based on performance practices which are ‘living’ in the sense of being current and still being developed. Jazz is current in our age from that point of view, so improvising flourishes there.  Similarly, continuo players in the Baroque era worked within a harmonic framework, a whole tradition that they learned deeply and imbibed organically. In contrast, I remember studying four part harmony, aural training and performance at the Con as separate pursuits. If they were combined, such that students had the opportunity to listen, write and then play all of these things, everybody in classical music schools would develop the ability to extemporise harmonically. It’s a question of feeling it’s valid and worthwhile to do it – giving yourself permission to try.

PP: Can you describe the piece “Times past” you are writing for Seaven Teares?  Is it completely notated or are there some improvised moments?

PC: It has a deliberately simple and archaic character, and is meant to precede with a sort of neo-Renaissance grace. It is about 80% notated, with room for the bass clarinet and Jenny’s (Eriksson’s) gamba to superimpose a melodic response to the serene texture of the rest of the group.

PP: What are some of the other projects you have on the go at the moment?

PC: I am getting ready to premiere another new work,  a suite of music I’ve written for bass clarinet, string quartet and jazz double bass, for the New Music Network. I’m also regularly touring with Mara!, playing for kids for Musica Viva in Schools, whilst trying to finish of my composition masters’ thesis. Bands led by James Greening, Gary Daly and Craig Scott will keep me busy for the next few months, while Andrew Robson has invited me to play with another interesting combination of improvised and old music, “The Tallis Project” in September.

Performance Details

Cutlan’s “Times Past” will be premiered by “Seaven Teares” and the composer at 3.00pm Sunday 26^th August, Recital Hall West, Sydney Conservatorium, Macquarie St, Sydney as part of “The Marais Project’s” annual concert series.  “Seaven Teares” will also be joined on this occasion by soprano Susie Bishop and gambist Alice Chance.

Tickets – $30/20 at door; family ticket $80 (2 adults + 2 children); bookings ph: (02) 9809 5185; on-line at: www.maraisproject.com.au