Amabile The Music of Stephen Hatfield

This was the first commercially available all-Hatfield CD, and it remains the one I am mostly likely to find on conductors' desks no matter where I travel. Mostly a cappella and full of cross-cultural influences at a time when the term "world music" was getting started, many conductors have said that this was the recording that "showed them how to do it". Conducted by John Barron and Brenda Zadorksy, with me on the sidelines and the wonderful Ted Marshall on sound (I am lucky that he has produced so many of my recordings), this CD started a tradition of holding Hatfield sessions during the hottest day of the year. I remember the growing heap of fainting altos and the drums so filled with condensed humidity that the moisture sloshed against the rims. In between lightning storms and the din of construction crews who showed up on the recording days to repair the church against a possible visit from Queen Elizabeth (who never showed), the choir sweated their hearts out for me. Here are the first recordings of pieces that have since become some of my most popular works, as well as rarely-heard insider favourites like "Sweet Tooth" and "Once I Had A Sweetheart". Although there are the shots of rhythmic intensity for which I am best known -- the fiery soloists in "Run Children Run", the roaring, foaming climax of "Ya Faroule", the single-minded drive of "La Lluvia", the double hemiola of "Camino Caminante" , the virtuoso cheekiness of "Three Ways To Vacuum Your House" -- many of my favourite performances come from what I like to call the slow, dreamy meltdowns: the meditative trance of "Ödi Ödi", the passionately serene "When It Was Yet Dark", the deep melancholy of "Once I Had A Sweetheart" and the even deeper heartbreak of "Queen Jane". And although Amabile was renowned for their wall-chewing, audience-stunning performances of "TJAK!", here they daringly take a slower and chillier approach, extremely creepy, which is a role model of how you can perform this piece without interfering with vocal health. Probably the greatest recording challenge was "Ower The Hills", where we discovered just how hard it was to mic the Scottish war pipes in a church acoustic.