![]() There are all kinds of secret pearls within the songs – quotes from or references to music we love – and varied musical styles to suit the songs, from Bachian suspensions in Deliver Us, to flamenco riffs in Romeo’s Seance, a hurdy-gurdy effect built from a Bartók chord in Who Do You Think You Are? And the sound of war sirens screeching out in I Thought I’d Write to Juliet was Michael Thomas’s violin. From that moment on, we performed standing up Working with Elvis gave us a new window into performance. He went to great lengths to put people right on that all interviews and photoshoots were with the whole ensemble, and we performed as a quintet with him among us. About 50% of the original material was Elvis’s, the other half was us, but people assumed that he wrote everything and we simply made the arrangements and were backing him. One of us might come in with a fragment – just a line – while another might have a complete chorus, or someone else a texture out of which the song would grow. Within a few days we were scribbling down ideas. It wasn’t just Elvis sending us pop songs and us sending him chamber music: we had similar tastes and inspirations from across many musical worlds. We made lists of different types, from love letters to circulars, pyramid letters to suicide notes.Īnd we swapped mix tapes. We started thinking about the combination of voice and string quartet. Composing and collaborating with one of the greatest living songsmiths had certainly not been in our thoughts, but by the end of the afternoon we were all daring to think that maybe we could do something together. Our world is of course one where we play other people’s music – an amazing array of repertoire – but you don’t often get to write your own. We chatted like old friends and realised we had all kinds of musical interests in common. Like us, he was on Warner and the record company arranged for us to meet. People were asking us: “Did you see who was in your audience?” We knew and loved Elvis Costello’s music and had been to his concerts too. ![]() Björk’s version of Why? is better than mine! Jacqueline Thomas, cellist, co-writer/arranger It’s been made into a piece of contemporary dance, and the songs have been covered many times. I’ve seen an adaptation in Gothenberg where the songs were wound into a narrative. There’s a reorchestrated version for a cabaret band. ![]() It’s been translated into different languages. The Juliet Letters has become a repertoire piece. It was probably the only time they had had to deal with ticket touts I don’t do things to say: “How do I look doing this?” That’s too much work! You have to be doing it with your whole heart otherwise why would you bother? We launched it in a 250-seater church. That’s their own lack of curiosity that they’re speaking to. I really can’t help people with that notion. There’s a common assumption that anything you do that isn’t what you did first must be hubris. ![]() What is it? What is it about? We had to accept that some people either wanted it to be Oliver’s Army or Bartók. With singable tunes, textures and harmonies from classical music alongside twists of rhythm and tempo there was a kind of panic about the record initially. It was like a door opening, and by the end of our writing The Juliet Letters, my final compositions were written in full for each player, directly from my head. After a while I was shamed into getting to grips with learning how to read and write music – I needed to learn the relationship between the bass and the treble clef, which had always been a mystery.
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