Keyboardist, composer, and producer Clive Nolan remains one of the most prominent figures in UK Progressive Rock. Alongside his decades-long work with Pendragon and Arena, as well as his Theatrical Rock operas with Caamora, Nolan has continually bridged the gap between Symphonic Rock, narrative storytelling, and classical orchestration.
His studio album, “Song Of The Winter Throne – The Saga Of Håkon Håkonsson,” turns to 13th-century Norwegian history. Following 2021’s “Song of the Wildlands,” this work blends Epic Progressive Rock, Scandinavian Folk textures, Old Norse choral arrangements, and a full vocal cast to chronicle the life of King Håkon IV. We caught up with Clive to discuss the album’s historical concept, its musical architecture, and his career evolution.
After adapting the legend of Beowulf in “Song of the Wildlands,” what made you turn to the documented 13th-century historical saga of King Håkon Håkonsson for this album?
Clive: “It was suggested to me by the record label, namely Morten Claassen over in Norway, that I do another Viking album. We agreed that if I did another one, that would give us two albums, and effectively two shows, that we could perform together.
King Håkon’s name came up several times while I was in Norway. He’s something of a local celebrity in the area where some of these people live, so I started doing some research. Sure enough, the story of his life is a great saga.
Once I’d divided it into episodes, it became clear that it would make a great album. Although it’s factual, as opposed to Beowulf, which we assume is fictional, it still has all the right ingredients for a great story: battles, hiding from enemies, betrayal, success, failure and intrigue. Once I’d done enough research, it simply looked like the right album to do.“
How did your approach to structuring the narrative change when adapting genuine Norwegian medieval history compared to mythic legend?
Clive: “My approach isn’t really any different. I take a story, find the main highlights and list them as episodes. I literally have a whiteboard here in the room where I start making lists of the big moments, and those become the moments I can represent through music and songs.
Whatever the story is, whether it’s Song of the Wildlands and the story of Beowulf or the history of King Håkon, it’s essentially the same process. In some ways this one was easier because Håkon led such a rich and eventful life. It made a great saga.“
Tracks like “Flight of the Birkebeiners” depict a physical, urgent escape across snowy mountains. How did you translate that sense of momentum into the rhythm and musical arrangement?
Clive: “I always say that, for me to write a piece of music, I have to be able to see it. By that I mean I need to be able to imagine what things would look like. I need a strong storyline or a very strong visual image in my head. That enables me, in my own way, to create the sounds that I think belong with that image.
In this particular case, I was dealing with a sense of cold, urgency, speed and danger. All those elements had to translate into music. I tried to achieve that with the bubbling strings, some of the bigger chord progressions across the top, and the injection of the choir making its proclamation in Old Norse.
As I say, if I can see the music, then I can create the music.“
Håkon’s early reign was defined by his struggle against his regent, Duke Skule Bårdsson. How did you convey that political tension in pieces like “The Puppet Crown” and “Fractured Throne”?
Clive: “I think the way forward with those pieces was to put the tension directly into the music. I used a lot of repetition and kept things very simple, which actually goes against my natural instincts as a writer. I had to fight against those instincts and keep everything very direct.
I made the vocals do most of the heavy lifting, whether that was the lead vocals or the choir. Underneath that, I used relentless rhythms that helped add to the tension and keep that sense of pressure running through the music.“
You worked again with Dr. Christopher Monk to incorporate Old Norse translations for the choral parts. How did the phonetics of Old Norse affect your melody lines and time signatures?
Clive: “Working with Christopher for a second time meant that we’d got our process into a good rhythm.
Generally speaking, I would write all the choral parts first, using either English or simply nonsense words. So the music was already written before Christopher heard anything. I would then present him with the piece of music, including me singing the chorus parts, and give him the lines explaining what I was trying to communicate at that particular point in the song.
Christopher would then turn that into Old Norse while making sure the relevant words fell at the right points in the music and that the natural stresses worked properly. He was very sympathetic to finding both the right meaning and the right sounds.
Occasionally we would negotiate over a particular word if we needed something that gave us better musical punctuation, but generally it was a very easy process. By now, I think we’ve become very used to working together in that way.“
The album blends Symphonic Prog, orchestration, and traditional instruments like the nyckelharpa and flute. What was your strategy for balancing the rock instrumentation with these acoustic textures in the mix?
Clive: “I don’t think there was a particular strategy beyond the overall picture I had for the album, which was essentially the same approach I used on Song of the Wildlands.
I wanted the orchestra, but I also wanted a complete layer of what I call the Viking instruments: nyckelharpa, psalmodikon, wood flutes, frame drums and barrages of percussion.
Then I wanted one singer to represent Håkon, with the three female singers adding a kind of musical commentary. I wanted a narrator to give us the story directly, so we always knew exactly where we were at each point in the album. And, of course, there was the chorus, adding power and depth to the situations being depicted.
My approach was consistent across both albums, and the balance between those elements came quite naturally.“
You assembled a strong vocal cast featuring Ryan Morgan, Christina Booth, Gemma Ashley, and Natalie Barnett. Do you write character parts with specific singers in mind, or do you match voices to the roles after the music is complete?
Clive: “I already knew all of these singers and had worked with them many times before. I knew they were going to be singing on this album, so for me it was very much a case of creating parts that would suit them. I was writing with their voices in mind from the beginning.“
Ross Andrews provides spoken narration throughout the record. How do you ensure that spoken passages drive the story forward without breaking the musical momentum?
Clive: “I tend to put the narration between the main tracks. Occasionally the narrator will interrupt the journey of a particular song if there’s an important moment in the story that needs to be explained.
The important thing is that the music never really stops. You don’t suddenly have the narrator completely on his own, breaking the atmosphere of the music. I think that allows the narration to keep the story moving while maintaining the momentum of the album.“
With 38 members of the Caamora Norway chorus involved, what were the main technical and logistical challenges of recording and mixing such a large ensemble across UK and Norwegian studios?
Clive: “Recording the chorus was quite a challenge, just as it was with Song of the Wildlands.
With Wildlands, because we were all locked away during Covid, I opened it up through the internet to anybody who wanted to take part. Everyone who became one of the singers was sent their homework, recorded their parts themselves and sent them back to me, and then I edited everything together.
I’ve got to be honest, it was a massive amount of work, and I’d rather forgotten quite how much work it was until I decided to do exactly the same thing again for this album!
We ended up with around thirty-eight singers, possibly slightly more, and I wanted to use each of them two or four times. At the maximum, there are around two hundred voices on the album.
That left me with something like six thousand individual pieces of audio to wade through. The enormous job was editing all of that and making everybody sound as though they were standing in the same room at the same time. But I’m very happy with the result.“
The Earbook Edition includes a bonus disc with alternate versions and “Fireside Mixes.” Were these tracks originally early demo iterations, or were they developed specifically as companion pieces?
Clive: “Whenever I do a bonus album, I always make the effort to create something that’s genuinely worth listening to. It’s very tempting, and I’ve seen plenty of bands do this, to produce a bonus album that’s basically the main album again with the vocals muted. We don’t do that.
I like to take each song I use and work with it in a different way. That’s why I asked Laura Piazzai from Imaginaerium to appear on three of the pieces and bring her own approach to the vocals. Being Swedish, she also has a natural Scandinavian colour to her voice that she could make use of, and that worked very well.
I asked Mirko Sangrigoli, who played drums and some of the guitars on the album, to create some extended guitar parts, and I reworked some of the songs myself.
There are also a couple of early versions. For example, on one piece you hear me singing the original demo and then, three months later, Ryan singing the finished version, and I’ve turned the two into a duet.
The Fireside Mixes take Ross’s narration and edit it into one continuous story, so you can hear the entire saga without the music interrupting it.
There’s a lot on there, and I think it makes for a really good bonus album in its own right.“
Having earned degrees in composition, orchestration, and conducting from London University, how does your classical training shape your approach to long-form concept albums compared to traditional rock songwriting?
Clive: “I think my classical training comes across in most of the work I do, whether it’s a musical, an Arena concept album or one of the offshoot projects such as The Hound of the Baskervilles.
I like working in long form. I like concept albums, and I like all the music on an album to somehow link together and become one large piece rather than simply being a random collection of songs.
My classical training has probably enabled me to see harmony more clearly, to understand contrapuntal lines and certainly to create atmospheres. I studied orchestration as well, which is becoming extremely useful these days.
So, all those different elements tie together.“
In 2026 you released both “Song Of The Winter Throne“ and “The Mortal Light,” which concluded your steampunk Alchemy trilogy. How do you switch your creative mindset between Victorian steampunk theater and medieval Northern sagas?
Clive: “First of all, I should point out that I never set out to write only three Alchemy musicals. Other people may regard The Mortal Light as concluding a trilogy, but as far as I’m concerned I’m not putting a full stop at the end of Alchemy. I’m certainly not closing that door.
As far as switching between projects is concerned, when I’m writing I do something I always describe as wearing the right hat.
I have a set of imaginary hats hanging on hooks just behind the door: there’s the Arena hat, the musical hat, the Viking hat and various others. Once I’ve focused on what I’m going to be writing and which world I’m working in, the music generally comes out of me in that particular way.
I don’t very often write a piece of music for a musical and then suddenly think, “Actually, that would have been better for Arena.” I can’t really explain why, but once I know what I’m trying to write, that colours the whole way I go about creating it.
So generally speaking, it’s all a question of wearing the right hat.“
Looking back at your work with Shadowland in the 1990s, your songs followed a more concise Rock band format. How has your writing style evolved from those early band arrangements to these large-scale orchestral productions?
Clive: “This really goes back to my hat theory. Shadowland needed those kinds of rock songs, so that was what I wrote.
My ability and desire to orchestrate and write on a larger scale was already there. It simply wasn’t needed in that particular context. The opportunity to write musicals and larger-scale works came later, after I’d built up some credibility and gained the support to actually do them.
So, it’s perhaps less a question of my ability changing and more a question of eventually having the right outlet for that side of my writing.“
You have been a cornerstone of Pendragon and Arena for decades while simultaneously directing your own solo projects. Is it refreshing to balance band democracy with being the sole director of your own Rock operas?
Clive: “When I work in a band, obviously I’m working with other people. In Pendragon I’m the keyboard player. In Arena I’m the keyboard player, writer and musical director, and, of course, other people in the band are writers as well. That inevitably makes it a collaborative process.
When I do the musicals, everything begins with me on my own. And I have to be honest, I like working on my own. That’s often where I feel I can get some of my best results.
They’re simply different ways of working, and I enjoy both, but for the large-scale projects that solitary beginning works particularly well for me.“
Your Music at the Mead Hall events in Hereford combine intimate acoustic sets with historical presentations. What inspired you to create this specific, fan-focused venue experience?
Clive: “Having toured for many, many years and experienced all kinds of venues and concerts, this was something that gradually developed in my head.
When we moved here and had the walled garden, I was able to fill in the old swimming pool and suddenly had a space. It seemed like a natural next step to build some kind of venue there, which is why we built the Viking Mead Hall.
Initially, I simply wanted to see what would happen if we tried putting concerts on there. But I didn’t want to do only acoustic performances. I wanted people to experience more than that.
That’s when the presentations began to develop, telling people the history behind something or exploring subjects connected with the music. Then we added the Minstrel Stage outside, where people could perform slightly more spontaneous, off-the-cuff music.
The whole thing has been a very organic process, and I’m very happy with it so far.“
You have performed around the world with Arena, Pendragon, and Caamora, from European festivals to theatrical shows in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Is there one live performance that stands out as particularly memorable or unpredictable?
Clive: “When I first joined Pendragon, things were pretty tough for the band. We were travelling up and down the country playing clubs and universities, living in the backs of vans and generally not getting much sleep.
Just as things felt as though they couldn’t get much worse, we were invited to play the Paradiso in Amsterdam. I don’t think we really knew what to expect, but when we got there, people were practically hanging off the rafters. It was amazing.
For that moment, we felt like rock stars, and I think it gave all of us the mental energy to keep going. It was a very important moment.
Then, a few years later, when I’d begun to establish my own name as well, I returned to the Paradiso with Strangers on a Train as part of an evening with several bands. Once again, the place was full, and suddenly I remember thinking, “Wow, this is me.”
That was another turning point. There have been many concerts over the years that stand out for different reasons, but those Paradiso shows were the ones that really helped get me started.“
Given your background with the Caamora Theatre Company, are there plans to adapt “Song Of The Winter Throne“ into a full theatrical stage production?
“Not really, no. It isn’t a musical; it’s a concept album, and we’ll perform it in the same way we did Song of the Wildlands.
If I want to sound slightly pretentious, I’d describe both Song of the Wildlands and Song of the Winter Throne as secular oratorios. They have that combination of orchestra, chorus, narration and lead singers.
That’s essentially how I see them and how they’ll be performed.“
Having been active in Progressive Rock for four decades, how do you view the current trajectory of the scene, and do you feel the boundaries between Prog, Folk, and musical theater are dissolving?
“To be honest, I don’t spend a great deal of time analysing the trajectory of the scene. Basically, I do what I do and concentrate on getting the job done.
For me, the boundaries between progressive rock, folk and musical theatre are dissolving simply because I work in all of them. I cross into all of those areas without really feeling any sense of boundaries at all.
As for the wider worlds of progressive rock, folk music and musical theatre, I think you’d have to ask each individual artist how they feel about that.
Personally, I think there are fewer boundaries than people might imagine.“
The album carries a personal dedication to your mother, Margaret Nolan. At this point in your artistic journey, what does “Song Of The Winter Throne“ represent for you personally?
“I dedicated the album to my mother because I hadn’t dedicated anything to her before, and I felt it was high time that I recognised the incredible influence she had on me during my childhood, as indeed my father did.“
Creatively,Song of the Winter Thronealso represents, perhaps in a strange kind of way, my ability to learn to keep things simpler.
“In a sense, I’ve almost gone backwards in order to go forwards. But I think that simplicity has given the album a visceral power and achieving that was perhaps one of the greatest challenges for me in making it.“
“Song Of The Winter Throne – The Saga Of Håkon Håkonsson“ stands as an ambitious milestone in Clive Nolan’s catalog, demonstrating his ongoing commitment to narrative rock and complex arrangements. We thank Clive for his time and insights. Order the album HERE.