Kennedy; strings in KT

[IEDSRI@aol.com]

Sharon Nelson asks:

 >  Didn't Nigel Kennedy write the violin part for the
 > JIG OF LIFE?

No, he doesn't play on that track at all.  The fiddle parts on "Jig of Life"
were played by John Sheahan.  Yet Kennedy has played on several Kate Bush
recordings (including "X4" and "The Fog", and viola on "Heads We're
Dancing"), though he did not compose the parts, merely performed them.  In
the case of the solo part from the extended mix of "X4", Kate did get help
from Kennedy in creating something recalling the violin solos from "The Lark
Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, though the idea was Kate's and the part
was later altered and rearranged by her to suit the song.  In a few cases
Kate has sought outside string arrangers for the string ensemble parts in her
music:  Michael Kamen did arrangements on the "Hounds of Love" album and on
"Moments of Pleasure".  But even here there is clear musical evidence that
the parts must have been composed and arranged by Kate in advance of their
adaptation into notated sheet-music for strings.  Perhaps in the latter case
Kate worked out her arrangement on the Fairlight and gave a tape of this for
Kamen to arrange for acoustic instruments, a procedure which we know Kate has
often followed in the past.  In any event, the music is Kate's, only the
instrumentation is another's.  In 1987 IED communicated with Michael
Berkeley, who was the arranger of the choral sections from "Hello Earth".  He
explained that Kate and he had taken considerable pains first to arrange a
choral passage that recalled the piece she had heard in the soundtrack of
Herzog's film "Nosferatu", trying several alternatives before deciding
instead simply to reproduce as closely as possible the original snatch of
Georgian chant (about which the estimable Karen Newcombe can tell us far more
than IED could).  And in a long article in the Kate Bush Club Newsletter the
process for the recording sessions for the Medici Quartet on "Cloudbusting"
(actually an arrangement for string sextet) was described in unusual detail,
revealing, if IED recalls correctly, that Kate herself had arranged and
notated the string parts (though the act was time-consuming and uncomfortable
for her, as she has not been wont to use written music of this type since her
days as a violin student).  This was also done for Jonathan Williams's cello
parts for "Hounds of Love".  It should be noted that, on "The Big Sky", for
which she deliberately sought a simpler, less polished ensemble sound, Kate
and her brother Paddy actually played the string parts themselves. 

-- Andrew Marvick (IED)
     S               R            I