This is another witty collaboration with the writer Tim Rose-Price. Patterson and Rose-Price first worked together on the now legionary “Time Piece”
‘Spare Parts’ is set firmly in the Frankenstein tradition. A megalomaniac professor takes on the role of God and tries to improve on nature by creating a new man. What the mad, Transylvanian prof. actually achieves is a series of monstrous mistakes.
1. A Sex-Symbol, who is gradually revealed as an appalling inflatable doll.
2. A Rock Star, who develops into a chaotic Super Market man, made of ingredients from all over the world.
3. And finally, the ‘real’ monster, a miserable motley of ‘spare parts’ made of everybody else’s junk, who has no identity of own.
So, the would-be-creator in his attempt to play God has only made monstrous generalizations and reduced mankind lower and lower, until he produces a monster who, quite understandably, turns nasty…..
Text: Tim Rose-Price
Originally scored for 6 male voices.
Revised in 1979
Details
Written 1976
Unaccompanied Chorus
SATB Chorus a capella
Length 8
Commission: King’s Singers
Dedication: ‘To Bob and Sandy Scandrett’
Publisher: Josef Weinberger