Variations on a Theme of Agatha Christie is a sound installation commissioned by The Word to accompany the Investigating Detectives exhibition. Created by composer and sound artist John Kefala Kerr, the installation invites visitors to sit and listen to sounds and music inspired by detective fiction.
by John Kefala Kerr
Agatha Christie
on a theme of
Variations
Most of the sounds in Variations are connected in some way to fictional murders: ukulele strings, bath water, an express train, a key turning in a lock, a match being struck and footsteps on gravel. Attentive listeners will notice that fragments of melody, voices and noises appear and reappear in various guises and combinations. In this sense, the music’s structure might be likened to a whodunit – although solving this particular ‘puzzle’ won’t require detection so much as an act of interpretation.
It is not only fictional crime stories that have inspired John’s Variations. Real-life events are also represented, such as the mysterious disappearance in 1926 of Agatha Christie herself, and, more recently, the theft of a priceless 310-year-old violin from a south London train – an event that hit the headlines in November 2019. That instrument was recovered following a brief sleuthing exercise and it is featured here prominently – played by its owner, Steve Morris.
Visitors to The Word can experience this installation in person by visiting the Pod on the ground floor between 20th October 2021 – March 2022.
With thanks to: Alison Burden, Library Voices, Marine Park Primary School, Maureen Cairns, Sheridan Design, South Tyneside Library Ukuleles, Steve Morris, St. Bartholomew’s Church – Sydenham, Denise Kerr, Trish Winter, Alan Fentiman, Whitburn Primary School.
Variations on a Theme of Agatha Christie is a sound installation commissioned by The Word to accompany the Investigating Detectives exhibition. Created by composer and sound artist John Kefala Kerr, the installation invites visitors to sit and listen to sounds and music inspired by detective fiction.
Most of the sounds in Variations are connected in some way to fictional murders: ukulele strings, bath water, an express train, a key turning in a lock, a match being struck and footsteps on gravel. Attentive listeners will notice that fragments of melody, voices and noises appear and reappear in various guises and combinations. In this sense, the music’s structure might be likened to a whodunit – although solving this particular ‘puzzle’ won’t require detection so much as an act of interpretation.
It is not only fictional crime stories that have inspired John’s Variations. Real-life events are also represented, such as the mysterious disappearance in 1926 of Agatha Christie herself, and, more recently, the theft of a priceless 310-year-old violin from a south London train – an event that hit the headlines in November 2019. That instrument was recovered following a brief sleuthing exercise and it is featured here prominently – played by its owner, Steve Morris.
Visitors to The Word can experience this installation in person by visiting the Pod on the ground floor between 20th October 2021 – March 2022.
With thanks to: Alison Burden, Library Voices, Marine Park Primary School, Maureen Cairns, Sheridan Design, South Tyneside Library Ukuleles, Steve Morris, St. Bartholomew’s Church – Sydenham, Denise Kerr, Trish Winter, Alan Fentiman, Whitburn Primary School.
Clues
3:47
Gauze-like drapes part to reveal a series of ‘audio clues’: violin strings idly being scraped, a passing train, running bathwater, a key turning in a lock, footsteps on gravel, a half-remembered tune played on clarinets… These sounds recur throughout these seven, short ‘variations’, and undergo development, becoming something like characters in a story. The violin featured here is a priceless Tecchler, owned by Steve Morris. Steve’s violin was famously stolen from a London train late one night in October 2019 and recovered with the help of police detectives. In “Clues”, this precious instrument sounds more like a strangulation victim than an example of the cream of European craftsmanship.
Le Bon Dieu
4:38
The impeccable deductive reasoning of Hercule Poirot is guided by a religious temperament: In The Mystery of the Blue Train, Poirot describes life as a train, and ‘le bon Dieu’ (the good God) as its driver. We join the music mid-journey as it travels like a sedate sleeper train along tracks that have no clear destination. This image acts as a backdrop to the return of the ‘half-remembered tune’, now played on the recovered violin and possessing something of the character of a slow waltz. A haunting, strumming sound evokes one of Agatha Christie’s more unusual murder weapons – a ukulele string.
The Proud Have Laid a Snare
4:41
The half-remembered tune is now accompanied by a string orchestra. A church congregation sings the words of Psalm 140 (The proud have laid a snare for me and spread a net with cords: yea, and set traps in my way), depicting Poirot’s eureka moment in One Two Buckle My Shoe when he realises he is being duped by the British political establishment.
"Ill Will"
1:32
“Ill will. Ill feeling. It’s everywhere. On railways and buses and in shops…” complains Lynn Marchmont in Taken at the Flood. Now it’s the murderous ukuleles’ turn to adopt the waltz rhythm, while the strangulated violin looks on from the margins.
Silent Pool
1:41
In December 1926 Agatha Christie’s car was found abandoned near a spot known as Silent Pool (said to be Surrey’s most haunted body of water). This is where it was feared Christie herself may have drowned when she went missing for several days. Ghostly female voices evoke the brief prospect of the author’s suicide and the many female victims in her novels.
Purloined Fiddle
1:27
A violin goes missing. What does it think and feel while lying in its case awaiting detection?
Violins enjoy a special status in detective fiction, Sherlock Holmes’ attachment to the instrument being the most famous example: “Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee”, observes Watson, in A Study in Scarlet.
Murder by Noises
2:52
TV detective theme music inspires this show of strength by all of the murderous sounds, music and noises assembled here for a climactic reveal, taking their collective revenge on those who would exploit or undervalue them.
