Name: Reeves, Camden: Spells, Charms & Hexes
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Reeves, Camden: Spells, Charms & Hexes

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I - 'Spells'
II - 'Charms'
III - 'Hexes'

The concept for these three motets was inspired by the trial of the Pendle witches in 1612. Twelve people from the area around Pendle Hill, in Lancashire, England, were accused of using witchcraft to murder ten people. Eleven of the twelve were tried, of which ten were found guilty and hung. The texts are freely adapted from the Malleus Maleficarum of 1487 by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger (in the English translation by the Reverend Montague Summers of 1928). Literally ‘The Hammer of the Witches’, this bizarre theological and legal treatise outlines methods for the identification, trial, interrogation and execution of witches.

We might very well want to believe that humanity no longer behaves this way. Executing witches – how ridiculous and awful that was! Such extreme irrationality is behind us, surely? In my eyes nothing much has changed. There were several events in 2016 and 2017 that made the ever-present danger of Witch Hunts quite real for me. On top of numerous unspeakable acts of religious extremism, there came a number of worrying political developments across the world. But such mob mentality is, and has been, all around us all
the time. The Malleus Maleificarum and the Pendle Witch trails serve as a sobering lesson from history: a mirror to our own actions in the present that reflects our cruelty back at us in all its ugliness.

These motets collectively present an image of a Witches’ Coven. But it is not really about what happens on stage; it is about us, about what happens in our heads and what we think we see and hear. Are these really witches? Or is this a projection of our own irrational fears and prejudices? Are we at their mercy or they at ours? There is always a lone voice – sometimes quiet, sometimes desperate – pleading with us to see things differently. It is up to us whether we choose to listen. Many will not want to confront the truth about themselves.

Each of these motets is based on its own hexachord (i.e. 6+6+6). ‘Spells’ and ‘Charms’ are both two-part canons at the unison. ‘Hexes’ is a more complex contrapuntal motet for 4-part sopranos. A soprano solo enters with a medieval Kyrie eleison plainchant halfway through the final motet, and it concludes with a Hexenchorale.

Forces:

Motets I and II are in two parts. Motet III is in five parts. Individual or doubled voices may be used, but the solo soprano in III should always be a single voice.

If performed as a set, this will require an odd number of voices. Excluding the solo part in III, if doubled voices are used for the remaining parts, these should be employed evenly throughout the three motets. For example:

- If 5 sopranos are used, 1 would be reserved for the solo in III (singing only that part), with the remaining 4 sopranos distributed as 2+2 for I and II, and 1+1+1+1 in III.

- If 9 sopranos are used, 1 would be reserved for the solo in III (singing only that part), with the remaining 8 sopranos distributed as 4+4 for I and II, and 2+2+2+2 for movement III.

- If 13 sopranos are used (the ideal in terms of symbolism), 1 would be reserved for the solo in III (singing only that part), with the remaining 12 sopranos distributed as 6+6 in I and II, and 3+3+3+3 in III.

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