Name: Erber, James: memento a/i
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Erber, James: memento a/i

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memento a/I and a/ii for piano are the first of a series of four meditations on parts of “The Judde Memorial”, a painting dating from around 1560, housed in The Dulwich Picture Gallery in South East London.

This “strange and sombre funerary image” (as it has been described by the art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon) shows William Judde and his wife (who is either Joan or Anne Cromwell) standing on either side of an altar. They are pointing at a corpse, which lies in front of them on a slab, wrapped in a shroud. With their other hands they are touching a skull. On top of the altar is a row of five symbolic objects: two irises in pots, flanking two woolsacks, with a candle in the middle. Parts of the painting are inscribed with moralising sentences: at the front of the slab on which the corpse lies, for example, is written “Lyve to Dye And Dye to Lyve Eternally”.

memento a/i and a/ii can be performed together or separately. Each is associated with those parts of the painting which show respectively the groom's and the bridegroom’s hands touching the skull. When looking at the painting, the viewer's eye is drawn irresistibly up and down the two hands: the contours of the two works’ very athletic melodic writing echo this. The music is largely in three parts throughout, with occasional forays into two parts and (at the very end of a/ii) one part. The textures in both pieces owe something to William Lawes’ Royal Consorts, to which I listened a great deal during the composition process.

The two pieces are both divided into three sections. a/i is fairly moderate in tempo, while a/ii (which is in many respects a mirror image of a/i) is somewhat slower. Thus, in a reversal of normal late-16^th century practise, they could be seen as a galliard and pavan.

memento a/i was composed between October and November 2017, and a/ii between May and July 2019. Both make use of material sketched out during the middle of 2016. They are dedicated to Jonathan, Irena, Mark and Alek Powell.

memento a/i was given its first performance by Jonathan Powell on 23^rd March 2018 at the Old Cello Factory, London SE1 as part of the 2018 London Ear Festival. memento a/ii was premiered by Jonathan Powell on 26^th October 2019 in Gdansk as part of the 2019 NeoArte Festival.

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