the heaven that runs through everything (2018) standard orchestra iteration.

This is a timecode-supported polytemporal orchestral piece

Dedicated to my dear friend, the composer, Gordon Crosse. 

Duration: 30 minutes.

Instrumentation:

4[1.2/picc.1.3/picc.2.4/Alt] – 3[1.2/Ca. 3/Bo] – 3[1.2/Ebcl.3/Bcl] – 3[1.2.3/Cbn] – 4.4[1.2.3/picc.4/picc] 3.1 – 2 Hps – Tmp+4* – Str:[16.14.12.10.8 as Violin 1: Soloists 1, 2, 3; violins 1a, 1b, 1c; Violin 2: Soloists 1, 2, and violins 2a, 2b, 2c; Viola: Soloists 1, 2, and violas a, b, c; Violoncello: Soloists 1, 2, 3, and violoncellos a, b, c; double basses: 1 – 8]

*(vibraphone, gongs, tam-tam, glockenspiel, crotales, cymbals, tambourine, maracas, wood & metal blocks, cowbells, gong, bass drum.)

Programme note:

the heaven that runs through everything is dedicated to my dear friend, the composer Gordon Crosse, as a gift for his 80th. birthday.

The title for this orchestral piece is taken from the poem The Heaven That Runs Through Everything by Rosie Jackson. Rosie’s poem won the First Prize in the Cookham Festival Stanley Spencer Competition 2017, and is a celebration of Spencer’s paintings.

Spencer was a devout Christian whose faith defined his subjects and the way he painted them, creating many paintings that were not unlike altarpieces celebrating the wonderful in the everyday as perceived through his filter of Christian belief. Rosie’s poem celebrates the miraculous in the everyday in Spencer’s paintings, too. However, I wasn’t drawn to the title for its religious significance or its reference to Spencer’s paintings or the beautiful writing it contained. Instead, I was drawn to the title as it implied a connectivity between all things that rather than being connected through a concept of heaven, were connected through atoms, molecules and materials, structures and sounds, chemistry and physics, eco-systems and biospheres that relate to one another in multiple, complex ways to comprise the building blocks of life itself. It is this interpretation of the poem’s title that reflects the building of an orchestral piece of substantial scale, generated through the combination and recombination of compositional elements related and interconnected on many levels. It is the compositional material that is ’the heaven’ that runs through everything in this piece.

The 30-minute composition is for an orchestra of either 94 players (standard orchestra version) or a maximum of 114 players (large orchestra version). In both versions, all players are performing polytemporally meaning that each instrumental voice is played at a different speed to every other. At times, these polytemporal combinations produce very dense and complex sound relationships that will overwhelm the senses and obscure what can be audibly perceived. Such extremes are intentional. There are three primary sustained climactic episodes comprising the landscape of the piece, each building toward a more intense episode than the former. These hyper-dense episodes are, however, contrasted with extensive sections of less dense and extreme material and it is the journey between these contrasting states that generate the architecture and narrative of the piece.

Despite, or more accurately, because of this piece’s sonically complex nature and the many different speeds executed simultaneously, the composition is designed to be performed without a conductor. Instead, it uses a system of organisation that somewhat flexibly holds instrumentalists and structure together using timecode (minutes and seconds printed above every bar in all instrumental parts that mark the passage of time throughout the piece) read in conjunction with each players’ loosely synchronised mobile phone stopwatch so that both timecode and clock-time approximately match up during the performance. This system enables players’ to know where they are and exactly what they should be doing at any given point in the composition regardless of the lack of conductor, the independence of their material or the different speeds at which they are performing. As such, each player could be thought of as being their own independent conductor. It is the creative freedom and ability to build and perform vast polytemporal orchestral structures using this composition and performance method that remains an ongoing passion and fascination.

the heaven that runs through everything is a timecode-supported polytemporal composition. For more information on how timecode-supported polytemporal music operates, please watch this video:

Performance instructions:
1) This work is unconducted.
2) There is no score. All notated material is within each performer’s part.
3) It is anticipated that the orchestra will be positioned in a conventional manner but the nature of the music and performance also lends itself to new spatial configurations, should these be appropriate.
4) All instrumentalists play independently of each other. The composer treats each performer as a uniquely independent voice.
5) Music is cued only at the start when all stopwatches are loosely synchronised. There are no other points of ‘fixed’ synchronisation between the instrumentalists.
6) Whilst the relationship of each instrument is somewhat flexibly placed against its neighbour, care has been taken to calculate potential outcomes of coincidence and variability. To this end, it is vital that metronome markings and timecode are adhered to as accurately as possible throughout the performance.

The Score And Parts: 
There is no score for this piece. All musical material and instruction is fully notated within each player’s individual parts. Difficulties associated with displaying the musical material in vertical alignment as represented in real-time are considerable, as each instrumental voice is delivered through independent tempi. Due to this, the detail of vertical alignments and harmonic relationships will contextually change from one rehearsal and performance to another. A vertically aligned, standard score would attempt to fix these relationships on the page in such a way as to unrealistically represent the inherent flexibility and flux of performance outcomes, rendering what is represented and fixed in the score inaccurate. The composer anticipates a range of approaches that will contribute to a somewhat flexible performance. This is desirable and anticipated. Consequently, each performance will yield somewhat different results through its interplays, gestural and harmonic contexts and outcomes. Adherence to timecode ensures that the architecture of the piece remains intact but the on-going interpretation of tempi and timecode creates contextual changes to the alignment of musical detail between all the parts. As such, there is no definitive performance; the music has to be performed or experienced to be ‘known’.

Timecode:
Timecode is not used to imply the use of any kind of click-track in performance or to be seen as a straitjacket to flexible performance within the orchestra and timecode framework. However, players are required to use individual mobile phone stopwatches during the performance to help structure timings, prevent long-term tempo-drift and delivery of their material to achieve an outcome that most closely matches the composer’s structural intention.

Continual reference to the timecode embedded in each part when reading in reference to the stopwatch is particularly useful after longer pauses or where tempo has slipped due to playing under or over the metronome markings, enabling the performer to compensate by playing a little faster or slower to ‘catch up’ or extend or cut short pauses and rests as necessary to remain broadly on track with the timecode throughout the piece. It is important to start and also complete phrases within and as close to timecode parameters as possible. Please adjust your playing speeds continually to align with the timecode.

Players synchronise their stop-watches/timing devices at 0’0”. The 0’16” timecode represents rehearsal mark 1 in all the parts and the start of the piece. I recommend a nominated member of the orchestra ‘conducts in’ the synchronisation of stopwatches at 0.0”, enabling a synchronised stopwatch start on beat 1 of bar 1. The more closely all stopwatches are synchronised, the more focused the musical structure and delivery of the piece will be. In effect, the 16 seconds between 0.0” and rehearsal mark 1 represents a countdown into the start of the piece for all players whether playing material or silent at that time.

Note: Excluding rehearsal mark 1, rehearsal marks within individual parts do not correspond to each other across the orchestra in any way; they are used as a visual aid to clearly indicate tempo changes within respective parts. Collective reference points can only be found through timecode (see below).

Timecode has been added to each instrumental part for two further purposes:
1. To help gauge the overall duration of each part during personal practice thereby enabling the performer to acquire a good ‘feel’ for the various tempi and overall duration of the material when playing within the temporally varied ensemble texture.
2. To serve as a collective reference point in any area of the piece during rehearsals.

Mobile Phone Instructions:

1. If using stopwatches or timers on mobile phones, be sure to turn off all sounds (put the phone on silent) and place the device onto ‘aeroplane’ or ‘flight safe’ mode to prevent incoming calls or notifications and banners obscuring the home screen where the stopwatch will be running.

2. Similarly, turn off the lock screen function to prevent the screen from shutting down after a given duration as it is essential for the stopwatch to be visible throughout the duration of the performance. It is also essential, if using electronic mobile devices, to ensure that the battery is appropriately charged to meet the demands of rehearsals and/or performance.

Practice regime:
Personal practice is undertaken as usual. Once the player has command of the musical material, continued practice with the stopwatch and timecode will ensure familiarity playing as closely as possible to timecode in preparation for effective delivery and combination with other multi-tempi musical strata in performance.

Dynamics:
All dynamics are expressed as absolute values, meaning any range between pppp and ffff is notated to represent the quietest and loudest sounds possible as produced by that particular instrument. There is no consideration for relative dynamics. The composer has balanced the absolute dynamics of the pieces being mindful of the overall balance in performance.

Rehearsals:
Each player is responsible for shaping their performance and being both a soloist and part of the orchestral sound-world. It is important to shape your performance by observing the full dramatic potential of the dynamics of your part and listening to what others are doing, finding the aural connections, of which there are many, and playing into these, not in a forced way, but as a mindful act of communication across the orchestra.