Martin Lodge Photo: Nicolaas Waanders
Annoyed with New Zealand's fixation with looking inward to try to find an identity, Martin Lodge decided to do the exact opposite and looked outwards to the largest countries in the world for his new string quartet album. Flow is a project to link composers from four countries in a joint musical statement on the Taoist / Buddhist theme of ‘flow’.
While he wanted the composers to have a lot of freedom, Martin also wanted to have a theme to draw all the pieces together.
“I reflected on what I thought was universal and the one thing that came to mind was ‘change’. I remembered an old quote by the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus that I read many years ago that stuck with me - Everything flows, nothing is stationary – and I know in traditional Chinese philosophy there was a similar idea about flow, so the project became known as Flow.”
TAO, street image in Shanghai; TAO is the Chinese symbol for the natural order of the universe Photo: Wayne Laird
From here Martin still had a long way to go to make the album a reality, but as Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism says ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’.
Michael Daugherty Photo: Creative Commons
Martin's first step couldn't have been more bold. He decided to go to the top, contacting a composer whose work he has admired for many years: the self-styled bad boy of contemporary music and multiple Grammy Award-winning American composer Michael Daugherty. To Martin’s surprise Daugherty accepted the nominal NZ$ fee and composed the lyrical string quartet Fallingwater.
“It’s inspired by the architecture of the American Frank Lloyd Wright,” Martin says “in particular, his wonderful house Fallingwater which is built over a small waterfall. There’s a great sense of American openness and romanticism in the piece.”
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house Photo: Creative Commons
Next Martin emailed the Shanghai-based composer Jia Daqun asking if he would also like to contribute a work. But after a polite, not-committal email reply, Martin realised the only way to start a relationship was to fly to Shanghai and meet the composer in person to prove he was a real person with a serious project.
“This turned out to be a very good move for the project because it was that personal friendship and trust that allowed us to complete the project.”
Indian composer Param Vir was also invited to contribute a work after literally turning up at Martin Lodge’s door one day. His piece We Want to Live in #Peace is a deeply humane work that uses the imagery of clouds in the deserts of Syria to depict the recent struggles of Syrian refugees.
Zaatari refugee camp: "like living on the moon" Photo: Flickr.com
"P.V. said he was so deeply distressed to see the human suffering shown on television news that when he was trying to write his piece for this album he had a kind of writer's block until he realised that he had to just address this. ‘What was the point of writing beautiful string quartet music if it just ignores the crises of humanity in the world?’”
While he was in New Zealand Param Vir found that he loved the soundscape here so he also decided to include New Zealand birdsong within his work, both field recordings and imitations of birds performed by the string players.
Polaris String Quartet Photo: Supplied
Martin’s own work Stream, reflects thinking about aspects of movement and human consciousness of movement.
“This includes movement of the human body, of natural elements like air and water, but also the flow created by machines and of digital data. We may be able to constrain time and change for a little while, using technology or with memory, or we may retain connections to past things through remembered song.”
The work that closes the album is The Void Between Heartbeats by Michael F. Williams written for string quartet and digital effects. It’s inspired by the idea of the emptiness and stillness between one beat of the heart and the next. The moment when the arrow should be released; the trigger squeezed, and where the self is not.
Flow - Polaris String Quartet, album art Photo: album cover art
Martin found working in Shanghai – “a city full of surprises” - a big learning curve. Although the album was recorded in a top studio (the same one used to record the soundtrack for the film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) with a top string quartet (the Polaris Quartet) it wasn’t always easy going.
“There were moments of tension, people getting up and threatening to walk out and all the usual dramas” Martin laughs, “but in the end it all came out very well.”
“All the pieces on the disc in the end, by some coincidence seemed to follow the water cycle, starting with clouds, and streams of rain falling through and ending up in the deserts of Syria. So, it’s like a twist of fate that the water cycle, which is crucial to all life on earth, is reflected through all the pieces on the CD and I’m really happy about that. ”
Flow was produced by Wayne Laird and is available from Atoll Records.
