In 2008 I was very lucky to have a top 30 hit album “A Songwriter’s Tale” on which I revisited some of the hits I’d written for other people and with which I’d had hits as a singer myself. Not long ago I was sitting having a cup of tea with Darren Henley, who was then and had been for many years before, the head of Classic FM radio station. He suggested I put out an album of some of my more classical pieces. I’ve had a rather odd – and thankfully, eclectic career in which I’ve had the opportunity to write all sorts of music from hit ballads (for which I suppose I’m best known) to mad, charging, brutally experimental classical-pop tracks, to film music and of course classical pieces. This can confuse the hell out of people; it can sometimes also mean that those who consider themselves purists in each area might not see me as central to the genre in which they operate. In a way, I am a born outsider. Of course I’m not seen as central to the classical scene – how could I be, I’ve had pop hits? I’m not central to the rock scene – how could I be, I write “classical” and film music? So rather than feel alienated by that, I embrace it. When asked to write a film or TV score, for example, I’ll often record a Symphonic Suite or – in the case of “The Dreamstone” (52 half hours of brilliant animation for ITV in 1989) I wrote “The Dreamstone Overture” and so as the TV series was recommissioned each time, I wrote a new “overture” – even though we all know the word “overture” is much misused. These are not preludes; they are merely concert pieces composed using the melodic material I created within the score for TV series. “Dublin Overture” was in fact commissioned as a prelude to a concert in Dublin with the Irish National Symphony Orchestra, and was recorded live at Dublin Concert Hall in one take with no edits, something we should do more of in the classical recording world. I’ve heard horror stories from Abbey Road studio editors, of symphonies and concerti being recorded literally in four or five bar sections and cut together afterwards. I always try to get complete takes if I can – and rarely do more than two takes of a piece from which to edit the final version. Most of these recordings are single complete takes. Although I love being experimental and one of my favourite critical moments was when some of my more spasmodic “rocktastic” music was described as “Stravinsky meets Bartok on acid” my love affair with the art of composition, orchestration and conducting, and my relationship with the people who play in orchestras (and rhythm sections) – is what drives me. This album is a collection of some of the more traditional-sounding, purely symphonic “classical” music I’ve composed. I hope you enjoy it. Mike Batt
