Honestly! John and Abby are seen by everyone around them as the perfect married couple. They have been married for 22 years and have no idea how to communicate??? What have they been doing in all that time? I recognize that people can grow apart, but these two never make any attempt to actually talk to each other. They just make accusations and suffer hurt feelings. I wouldn't say I have a perfect marriage, but we do TALK to one another, and there is mutual respect, meaning we listen to the other point of view, even if we don't agree. Is that actually a rare thing in the world? Bernard MacLaverty is an Irish writer with a "Belfast accent, which has never left him, despite having lived and worked in Edinburgh, Glasgow and, remarkably, Islay in the Inner Hebrides." (The Irish Voice) He may have lived for many years in Scotland but much of his work has focused on Ireland or alludes to the country, including his five novels, Cal , Lamb , Grace Notes , The Anatomy School and Midwinter Break . MacLaverty is still very much seen as an Irish writer rather than a Scottish one and yet a story like 'A Time to Dance' manages to capture the city, Edinburgh, in which it is set while also making clear the main characters are very much from elsewhere. The descriptions - though at their best in doing so - don’t always cover the sex and love between the couple but also incorporate the narrator’s (and I presume Bragg’s) love of the Lake District. Vivaldi to mind, and I couldn’t resist incorporating a few references to his music, although I now regret mentioning it in my notes for the CD booklet. Vivaldi is a generous composer, his musical ideas ripe for further development, as Bach so often demonstrated. My Vivaldi references vary from a short snippet of melody, to a quite sizeable, much re-composed section, but they have no “deeper significance”, and you haven’t missed anything if you don’t recognise them.

And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

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Musically this is a gloriously eclectic piece, with milonga-inspired movements sitting along Philip-Glass-esque polyrhythms, all set within the mould of Baroque-derived instrumentation. What would you say are the most significant influences on your compositional style?

Bernard MacLaverty is an Irish writer with a “Belfast accent, which has never left him, despite having lived and worked in Edinburgh, Glasgow and, remarkably, Islay in the Inner Hebrides.” (The Irish Voice) He may have lived for many years in Scotland but much of his work has focused on Ireland or alludes to the country, including his fivenovels, Cal , Lamb , Grace Notes , The Anatomy School and Midwinter Break . MacLaverty is still very much seen as an Irish writer rather than a Scottish one and yet a story like 'A Time to Dance' manages to capture the city, Edinburgh, in which it is set while also making clear the main characters are very much from elsewhere. The two temporal cycles, Times of Day and Seasons of the Year, are favourite subjects for poets, as they offer such rich possibilities for metaphor when dealing with the human condition. There was no shortage of material; I simply had to spend a lot of time (well over a year) searching and sifting. A strong quartet of soloists move through the seasons: Grace Davidson is bright, spring soprano, Samuel Boden sensuous, Brittenish summer; Matthew Venner’s countertenor is autumn and bass Greg Skidmore completes the year as winter. All come together with the massed forces of Ex Cathedra (on typically fine form) for a stately Globe-style jig, bringing this immensely attractive cycle to its exuberant close.This book took me on a journey with two people who lost their connection with one another. Who not matter what - they could not see the love they possessed for each other, who thought that LOVE could end. And that this was their END, divorce being the only option left. A Time to Dance' is a compelling, evocative & highly captivating drama set in and around The Lake District, Cumbria, England. Performers often have to be reminded –particularly when performing Baroque works – that the style is ultimately rooted in dance music. Which of course it is! And your music – both A Time To Dance, but also the similarly light-footed Hatfield Service – clearly pays homage to this tradition. Is this something you try to involve in all the music you write? Time to Dance, music comes into being when the air is made to dance. For me, the most inspiring composer from this point of view is Bach. His music is infused with the spirit of dance. He must have been a great dancer – just look at the pedal parts in some of his organ works! Even in the most deeply felt movements of the great Passion settings, his music sets the spirit dancing. And for me, the measure of great Bach performers is the way they make the music dance. That’s one reason why I feel so privileged to work with Ex Cathedra’s inspirational conductor, Jeffrey Skidmore. So yes, I spend quite a lot of time both singing and dancing around when I’m composing, although I make great efforts not to disturb the neighbours. Composer Alec Roth may be UK-based and of Irish/German descent, but it’s America that provides the musical heritage for his 2012 cantata A Time to Dance, recorded here for the first time by Ex Cathedra. The music is richly melodic, twitching with rhythmic energy, with wide harmonic vistas conjured up by even more widely spaced modal harmonies; Copland lies on the horizon of so much of its vibrant directness, shaded by the occasional bluesy nod to Gershwin and even Sondheim.

When people in Marion think of the perfect couple, John and Abby Reynolds automatically sprang to mind. After twenty-two years of marriage, everyone who knows them laud their idyllic relationship. But John and Abby have a secret – they can no longer stand each other. And when they bring their children together to break the news, their daughter shares news of her own – she’s getting married. Reluctantly, John and Abby decide to keep their problems to themselves so as not to ruin their child’s special moment. Alec Roth writes… “ A Time to Dance was first performed in Sherborne Abbey on 9 June 2012 by Ex Cathedra, conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore. The work was commissioned to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Summer Music Society of Dorset, founded by its President and Artistic Director, Dione Digby, in 1963. The brief was to provide a large-scale, celebratory work, reflecting the passage of time and fifty years of music-making. The seed that set my creative juices flowing was the text which Lady Digby suggested as a possible starting point—the well-known passage from Ecclesiastes which I have used for the opening Processional. This lovely, profoundly human text provided the four key themes which permeate the whole work: times; seasons; love; dance..” Alec Roth’s new cantata is a celebration of times and seasons, and a joy to hear. Also included are new settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis and of George Herbert’s Antiphon ‘Praised be the God of love’.For me, creating music is a lengthy and arduous process; I have to find ways of keeping myself amused in the long lonely hours. This might be by setting myself a particularly knotty technical challenge – concealing an intricate canon below the surface of the music, for example, or hiding occasional musical puns within the texture. Mention of ‘the seasons’ is almost guaranteed to bring The subject matter at first seems a little risqué – a 54 year old married man falls for a girl 36 years his senior. Now, this could have gone any way really – it could easily have come across perverse or sordid, but it is all credit to the writing that it is in fact is a masterpiece of the emotions. The description and being in the mind of the main character was certainly convincing. This was less true of two female characters: his lover and his wife. To enjoy a fully-rounded character a reader expects grey and possibly dark grey aspects. Both these women were above criticism. The lover, Bernadette, becomes a very active, uninhibited, monogamous and amorous lover; not what you might expect of a teenage rape victim without the same relentlessly investigative treatment as the protagonist receives. Her moral development is totally out of kilter with her upbringing. Angela, the wife, is a sadly perfect person. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John… Meh. This was a Christian cheating story with very little physical cheating (kissing - witnessed by wife!!), but full-on emotional cheating. I haven't lived through infidelity, so I can't accurately predict what my own red line would be in such a situation. In this relationship, the H had all but admitted to falling in love with the OW and the couple was actively pursuing a divorce. Plans were in place for the H and OW following the divorce. Their public interactions were drawing suspicions, gossip, and frequent phone calls to the weary wife. The H's status as a Christian married man (and waiting on his perfectly pure, innocent, and devout Christian daughter's wedding) seemed to be the only barrier from turning their emo love story into a physical one. I understood how and why his wife turned into a shrewish harpy. There's quite a bit of Christian scripture-based monologue, so if that's not your thing, this isn't your book. I didn't buy the ending. I don't think there's a chance in hell that the wife could move past her H's lusting and pining for the OW.