Vic Hoyland talks Stockhausen to BCMG

Vic Hoyland, Credit Richard Kalina

To help promote Birmingham University's ambitious performance of Stockhausen’s Carré, for four orchestras and choirs, as part of their Squares – Circles – Labyrinths concert at the Q-Club, Vic Hoyland, director and intigator of the project, has been speaking to BCMG...


Hi Vic, rumour has it that this is something you’ve been wanting to perform in Birmingham for many years. Why is that and what makes the piece(s) so special to you?

15 years ago we mounted Stockhausen’s Momente in collaboration with the then youthful BCMG. Somewhere in the back of my mind, and shared with Jonty Harrison, has been the dream to attempt Carré. Although the work is significantly shorter than Momente, the spatial aspect of the work (a large orchestra and chamber choir split into 4 teams), the technical requirements, the need for 4 conductors, etc, etc... and a large empty arena in which to realise a performance left this project “on the shelf” until now. Two research areas in our Music Department (COMPASS and CEMPR) and new blood composers and conductors at last made us dare to take on this extraordinary work.


For those of us a bit less in know, can you tell us a bit about Stockhausen and his pivotal role in 20th Century music?

Messiaen was the teacher; Stockhausen was just one of many students attracted to Paris directly after the war years. The atmosphere must have been inspirational and electric; for so many young composers (circa 1960) began to redefine, and dare to imagine what music might yet become. Stockhausen might be said to have led the charge with one, new, and challenging idea after another, in a sequence of pieces that defies description. Carré is especially interesting because Stockhausen was composing Kontakte at the same time. Much of his new thinking radiated from work in his electronic studio. We have been rehearsing this piece in a school dining-room, opposite the Barber Institute. One of the kitchen staff said to me “it sounds just like a sound track to a film”; I liked that!


The Q-Club is a very unusual and interesting space in which to perform these works – how did performing there come about?

As part of our long-standing association with BCMG, we normally perform the New Music Ensemble concerts at the CBSO Centre. Please come and support us and you’ll see why we couldn’t conceive of presenting this event at Berkley Street.

We spent time and effort scouring Birmingham for a suitable space in which we might perform Carré. The venue had to serve my ideas for Berio’s Laborintus II. The Old Methodist Meeting Hall in Corporation Street is now a night-club and venue for rock concerts. Magnificent in its day, it is now a bit battered and showing its age, but the current manager “Billy” is looking to diversify, and then we knocked on his door, walked up the imposing stair-case and saw the place for the first time. We just looked at each-other and said: this is it!


Squares – Circles – Labyrinths performs at Q-Club, Birmingham on 18 and 19 March. For full concert details and booking information click here.