The Man who Painted his House, a short film I wrote the music for, is having its first public screenings this month and next. Its subject is Victorian-era art-workman David Parr, who worked for Cambridge-based firm Leach & Sons, who realised interiors for the likes of William Morris, and in his spare time decorated his own modest terraced house in the same Arts & Crafts style. He painted intricate and elaborate patterns directly onto the wall (that’s not wallpaper!), working long into the night, often by candlelight, over a period of 40 years. The house was preserved by the next generations of the Parr family and its inner treasures were discovered only by chance in 2009. It is now a Grade 2* listed building, with an arts centre next door offering guided tours. The film tells the house’s story, along with that of Parr and the ‘art-workman’ in the late 19th / early 20th century, through archive documents, readings from Parr’s notebooks and works by William Morris, together with footage from the house and from All Saints (“The Painted Church”), one of the significant projects Parr worked on.

The film was made in collaboration with the Derek Jarman Lab and Birkbeck, University of London. It was researched and produced by Dr Victoria Mills, and directed by Lily Ford. I wrote the score for viola and piano, and recorded it with violist Rosalind Ventris.

Sneak preview of the music….

There were a number of things I loved about this subject that I wanted to pick up on in the score. Inspired by Morris’s influence on Parr, I took elements of the music by composers I associate with the Arts & Crafts movement as a starting point. The concepts of layering and time are also important themes of the film, and so I allowed this musical language (and particularly its treatment of folk idioms) to be refracted through a more contemporary lens. The score reflects on its own material, echoing the sense of endurance, ageing and – in places – nostalgia we might feel from the house. Patterning is of course central to Parr’s decorative style, but the fact that these patterns are painted by hand makes them susceptible to variation (whether deliberate or happy accident): I tried to recreate this musically, through patterns that never quite settle into precise repetition. These patterns, and their occasionally unpredictable ruggedness, also helped me convey the way the walls of Parr’s house attempt to bring the natural world inside. Different patterns are juxtaposed in many of the projects Parr worked on, and so I also experimented with superimposing musical patterns on one another. I wrote for piano and viola because there is a piano at the Parr house and this seemed to give a legitimacy to its use on the soundtrack; the alto-voiced viola (rarely in the spotlight ordinarily, but capable of deep, complex expression on its own given the chance) seemed to suit the often-overlooked nature of the artist-workman profession. Above all I tried to capture the sense of charm and wonder that those walls instilled in me when I visited the house, and the sheer love, aspiration and highest-level craftsmanship that went into decorating them.

The film previewed as part of Cambridge Festival on 2nd April. It will be screened at Birkbeck Cinema on 7th May, and in a special event with the music performed live – for which I will be joined by violist Kinga Wojdalska – at All Saints church on 20th May.