Solem Quartet: Industry

Bringing together music for string quartet with archive recorded sound, and new works from composer William Marsey and arranger William Newell, this Solem Quartet concert celebrates the history of industry, central to the story of the UK.

Tied to industry are the communities forged in the heat and struggle of labour, and who often celebrated their togetherness with music.

The concert begins with sounds of nature, pastoral folk songs and the rhythm of work in a Western Isles’ waulking song – all of which will be drowned by the clamour of machinery as industry takes over.

The contained energy in the Vivace from Benjamin Britten’s Quartet No.2 lights a match from which a revolution will follow, while the full-throttle nature of Julia Wolfe’s Dig Deep evokes the intensity and grit of industrial work.

‘I think of music as a strategy for mustering enthusiasm and joy.’ Missy Mazzoli neatly summarises why music persists, especially as an antidote to hardship, in her note for Enthusiasm Strategies.

Enthusiasm and joy can be found in the playing of Tom Clough, Northumbrian pipe player and composer who worked as a miner; and the warmth of community is heard through an archive recording of a Llangynwyd pub in 1976. Interacting with newly arranged live accompaniment by Solem Quartet violinist Wiliam Newell, these historic recordings come to life.

Woven through the concert, William Marsey’s specially commissioned chorales offer a contemporary lens. Marsey’s Be nice to see you reminds us of the composer’s hometown of Hartlepool, incorporating recorded everyday conversations with the composer’s parents.

The concert ends with that post-industrial anthem from Manchester, a live recording of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ with a new musical framing.

Tickets: from £34