Jim Holt - Chris Ellis Jokers Memory 1976 A Jokers Memory [WORK]

On one occasion during a playback he lapsed into the Franck Sonata for no apparent reason and I joined in from the other side of the studio. (How that work followed me around!) Another time he played the opening of Schubert's great Trio in B flat. I joined in gamely and the cellist Peter Willison picked it up too. It sounded fabulous and I wished we could play the whole work. As we moved from one studio to another it was a sort of game to try and catch the other person out, playing by ear or memory or improvising. Mostly what amused Jack was spotting where the composer had borrowed from - not something that composers in any way welcome(!), but pretty safe when they're in the box for playback.

Jim Holt - Chris Ellis Jokers Memory 1976 A Jokers Memory

S.O.S. TITANIC was what they called a mini-series. At 150 minutes long, almost the length of two films it was intended both for TV and cinema. There was a big and starry cast including David Janssen, Ian Holm, David Warner, Cloris Leachman and Helen Mirren. The director was William (Billy) Hale. It was called 'SOS Titanic' and was later assessed as the most authentic and accurate account of the disaster and well-researched. We had a man who was an actual survivor on the team who was fascinating to talk to. Producer Norman Gimbel was the son of the Gimbel of Gimbel amd Macey's in New York, the most famous of practical jokers. Norman followed in his footsteps; when I arrived he had an issue of Variety printed with the headline 'Howard Blake dies at age 95'.(His idea of a joke!) He didn't seem too concerned as to whether the film succeeded or not. I later found he was known as a lyric writer but he never mentioned it. He hired me on the strength of 'The Duellists' which I'd just written and because he was obliged to have a certain proportion of Brits on the team because it was an Anglo-USA production. It was made by Bernard Delfont, brother of Lew Grade who was making 'The Raising of the Titanic' on the next lot - not to be outdone! I met Lew in the car park on the first day of shooting and asked him how it was going. He said 'It would have been cheaper to drain the Atlantic!' I liked the black and white documentary footage of the launching and that inspired my theme for the opening. Originally I suggested to write the score for large organ, suggesting the one in the Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, but Gimbel said no. I used 4 horns and 4 trombones with percussion, flute, oboe and strings and recorded in Denham Studios in London, flying back from Los Angeles for 5 days to do so. The set of S.O.S.Titanic was a gigantic affair that could be moved up and down electronically. The ship interiors were shot on the Queen Mary in Long Beach and the first class lounge was a replica of the dining room of the Waldorf in the Aldwych. I recorded a Scott Joplin waltz (his only one, called 'Bethena') for the Irish lovers dancing on deck and several more period-sounding waltzes of my own. The dance music played below decks when the Irish lovers first meet was a famous standard: 'The Connemara Waltz.'

'As a student at the Royal Academy of Music I formed a duo with violinist Miles Baster, performing concerts of the standard repertoire: Mozart, Beethoven, Franck, Faure, Brahms, Ravel and so on. I adored this repertoire and the extraordinarily direct and passionate music that the combination of these two instruments engenders. Miles suggested that I compose a sonata, but I had produced nothing more than a sketch when he left London to found The Edinburgh String Quartet and our partnership came to an abrupt end. I changed direction, turning towards playing, arranging, composing and conducting music for the media and becoming unbelievably busy and in demand. By the early 1970s I had overdone it. I retreated to a watermill in Sussex, determined to work again at the basic pillars of harmony, counterpoint and form and to further develop my own style of classical composition. I began to play chamber music again with violinist Jack Rothstein and cellist Peter Willison, who asked if I would write him a cello piece. I responded with Diversions for cello and piano. Jack asked if I would write a Violin Sonata, and I wrote the first version of the one here recorded. Jack then suggested that the viola player Ken Essex might join us if I wrote a Piano Quartet and I (somewhat foolhardily!) turned down Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon' in order to work at it. But we were pleased with the outcome and a concert of the three new works was given, followed by what we all felt to be an inspired demo recording of the Piano Quartet, here on professional release for the first time. I later expanded and orchestrated Diversions into a concerto with the help of Maurice Gendron and a fine recording of it was made by Robert Cohen and The Philharmonia, but I was not satisfied with the Violin Sonata and withdrew it from circulation. In February 2007 I found myself conducting the SCO in Edinburgh and the cellist from The Edinburgh Quartet, Mark Bailey, who was playing in the orchestra, approached me and we reminisced a little. Miles had spent his entire life playing with the quartet and had died in rather sad circumstances and we talked about some sort of musical tribute to him. During last summer I dug out the material from all those years before and looked at it again. Suddenly I conceived a new opening and this set me on the path of extensively and ferociously revising the entire piece. Whilst writing I constantly remembered Miles' virtuosity and artistic punctiliousness, his views on music and his extreme conscientiousness as regards to markings, tempo and dynamics. I marked it: 'Dedicated to the memory of Miles Baster.' The slow movement Lento might seem to have a requiem-like quality, although the work is of a virtuoso nature throughout. I can only hope that he might have approved. It would have meant a great deal to me. 041b061a72