Instrumentation
2(II=picc).bfl.2.ca.2.bcl.2.cbsn - 4.3.3.1 – timpani(=bell cluster/rototoms(5)) – perc (3 – tuned cbells (or steel pan)/tbells (2 sets)/tbell with water bucket (or 3 separate tbells)/6 church bells/3 bell clusters (including 1 for timpani)) - pno – strings (14.12.10.8.6)
Availability
Score and parts avaiable for hire
Programme Notes
Everything looks different in the sun. Here, I think of cartoonish wide crude rays with blotted edges. I think of a simplified complex thing. Involuntary feelings of jubilation - smiles you don’t want to crack - involuntary happiness of the sun and of bells - every feeling at once. Like the sun, the pealing of bells fill the air with a similar golden thickness or heaviness. Imagine being in a room with no windows and someone shooting a cannonball through the wall, a solid edged beam of gold appears through huge force. Dangerous, very present beauty and extremity. Bright twisted metal of brass and bells and strings. Large bells toll sadness and festivals, small bells buzz horses or dances. The brightest of lights and sounds. Sounds so intensely full or loud that they feel that they may punch through ears and glass but instead transcend that, go past into some magical threshold. The satisfaction of hitting something brittle with a hammer and the crack never stopping. Great upsetting cracks in the ground revealing yellow smiling glee.
Oliver Leith