Madeleine Mitchell on forming musical conversations

Musical conversations seem to me to be at the heart of any music making, whether communicating the essence of the composer’s work through the acts of performance and recording or having a dialogue musically with fellow performers. Over the last three years I’ve gradually been assembling an album called Violin Conversations of mostly premiere recordings, with several pieces written for me as gifts.  Although the title was partly inspired by one of the pieces — Colloquy for violin and piano (1960) by the remarkable nonagenarian Thea Musgrave (b.1928) — it also seemed very apt, reflecting the interactions that you have with both the composers and the musicians with whom you’re performing.

It’s always appeared to me such an obvious thing to work with living composers, to get to know them and to speak with them about their music, especially when they have written things for you. It’s great to be able to develop a piece with a composer, to be part of the creative process, and it’s so interesting, when you first receive a work, to try it out and experiment with it to see if it works. I occasionally make practical suggestions, especially when the composer is not a violinist and they invariably welcome this. Working directly with a composer on a piece is a privilege.

In the case of Violin Conversations, it’s particularly special to have been able to record four of the pieces with the composers themselves as pianists (Errollyn Warren, Wendy Hiscocks, Martin Butler and Howard Blake). As you get to know them more, it all feeds into one’s understanding of their music and where it emanates from. The four composers I worked with on this album have quite different styles, but on each track you feel as if the music comes directly from its creator, really from the ‘horse’s mouth’.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Howard Blake (pictured below) throughout my career and enjoyed hearing many personal stories from accompanying Eartha Kitt in the studio in the 1970s to recording his violin and piano music. Included on the disc is the delightful arrangement he made for me of The Ice Princess and the Snowman, a pas de deux love duet added to The Snowman ballet.

Mitchell with Howard Blake OBE, performing The Ice Princess and the Snowman at Saint John’s Smith Square for Classic FM ©Kyle MacDonald

I premiered Errollyn Wallen‘s piece Sojourner Truth for violin and piano during lockdown in a live-streamed concert in London for International Women’s Day. Wallen was up in her Lighthouse and was only able to hear it on FaceTime before the online premiere, but we found a time last year to finally meet up and play her piece for this album. We also recorded a video discussing the work’s fascinating subject, American abolitionist Sojourner Truth. While the pianist for the live-streamed premiere was very good, there was nothing quite like having Wallen herself in her inimitable jazzy singer songwriter style, able to tell me various things as we were playing it. Similarly, I recorded both Martin Butler’s and Wendy Hiscocks’ violin and piano pieces with them at the piano, and it was so helpful to have Hiscocks’ present at the recording of her solo violin piece because she was able to offer personal insights which inspired my performance.

I must admit I was slightly apprehensive sending my recording of Colloquy (with pianist Ian Pace, renowned for his performances of new music) to Thea Musgrave (pictured below), as I didn’t know her personally, and it’s quite a tough piece! So I was thrilled when she emailed a few hours later saying that she and her husband had listened to it! Not only did she say it sounded fabulous, but she also invited me to lunch in New York. This I was able to do in May and it was absolutely delightful to meet in person and have a long conversation with Thea.

Mitchell with Thea Musgrave CBE in New York ©Robert Coleman

Also included in Violin Conversations is the evocative Rawsthorne Violin Sonata which premiered in the same concert as the Musgrave, at the Cheltenham New Music Festival 1960. This work exhibits an equal (and sometimes virtuosic) partnership musically between violin and piano, creating a balanced dialogue. The recording you’ll hear on the album is a live BBC recording I made with pianist Andrew Ball, with whom I had a significant musical partnership for 20 years in a wide repertoire. I’ve included this track as a tribute to this outstanding pianist following his death in 2022. During my collaborations with Ball, we didn’t have to talk much - we were on the same wavelength and everything seemed to work naturally with the music.

During the pandemic, these musical conversations were cut short when musicians were exiled into solitude and could only play solo. However, we could still communicate through our instrument. Richard Blackford found a way to express the enforced separation I and others experienced in his work, Worlds Apart, which features on the album. Your Call is Important to Us, by Manchester-based American composer Kevin Malone also explores the frustrations of not being able to have the conversation you crave, in this case the torture of being on hold.

I recall a conversation with Michael Nyman just before I recorded some of the pieces he’s written for me for an earlier album. While he updated a few things in his own works, we talked about how helpful it would be to be able to ask Beethoven, what he meant by certain things in his works, how fast he wanted them played etc! I’ve found over the years that my work with contemporary composers has inspired and refreshed my approach to the composers no longer with us. I tend to treat any score like a new piece if possible and imagine my conversations with the composer. 

Violin Conversations is set to be released on Friday (23 June) by Naxos, with recent music by British, American and Australian composers in a range of styles, performed by Madeleine Mitchell. The album features eight world premiere recordings, six pieces written specially for Mitchell and four recorded with the composers as pianists.