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Philip Goddard
THE GREAT WILDERNESS
-- Nine Contemplations or Visions --
Opus 25 -- Timing: 79'
for organ
Atmospheric conditions
on Liathach's summit crest;
at the start of the Am Fasarinen pinnacles.
World Première: 22nd
July 2002, Rochester Christian Reformed Church, NY, USA, Carson P. Cooman, Organist
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From the Composer's Notes :
This work is a second commission from the American organist
and composer Carson P. Cooman . When he told me he wanted a work for
organ, I felt this to be a challenge to take on: to produce a major
organ cycle similar in length and scale of conception to those of
Messiaen. Another similarity to the Messiaen cycles would be my treatment
of organ sound - not because I wanted to imitate Messiaen's music,
but because a creative approach to organ sounds is what excites me.
I have little interest in the well-known 'church organ' sound produced
by what is known 'in the trade' as plenum registrations (well, except
as used as an occasional contrasting element among the whole panoply
of available sounds).
Carson Cooman asked me if at all possible to compose
the work for an organ of very modest specifications so that he could
perform it in many churches after the premiere; it's all very well
writing works that require a big organ, but the opportunities for
performing such works can be few and far between. So I had a double
challenge of the seeming impossible - not only to compose a fairly
lengthy organ cycle of big conception and with a great variety of
sound colours, but to do this on a modestly specified two-manual organ.
But then, as I set up all the various plausible combinations
on this small organ, it began to look as though with care and some
very unusual combinations and couplings I could indeed meet the full
challenge. I should say, though, that in the right hands the work
will still sound closer to my full intentions when played on one of
the larger organs, with a greater range of available registrations,
greater dynamic range, and greater availability of big pipes (16-
and 32-foot ranks) for the 'earthquake' effects which, if sparingly
and sensitively applied, can add so much to the breadth and spaciousness
of the overall sound.
My intention was to present in this work a series of
related mystical or spiritual visions, but to do this from a universal,
non-sectarian viewpoint - the viewpoint of wilderness and mountain
experience. It was no mere personal quirk that made Jesus and other
spiritual leaders go out into the wilderness for contemplation and
inner communion, and many 'ordinary' people today go out into wilderness
and onto mountains for the same purpose even though they aren't all
conscious of their underlying spiritual motivations.
The different movements of the cycle are based on visions
relating to an area of the Scottish Highlands that indeed I explored
for the first time in May 2000 - Torridon and the surrounding area,
taken broadly from Applecross to Dundonnell, and containing a particularly
remote area which is sometimes referred to as The Great Wilderness,
in the midst of which is a mountain called A' Mhaighdean (The Maiden,
pronounced À Vétyan), a trek to which for cognoscenti represents
the heart and quintessence of remote wilderness experience, at least
as far as it goes in Britain.
Many of the melodic ideas in the different movements
arise from the fragments presented in the opening movement, and the
thematic connectedness makes the whole work something intermediate
between a Messiaen-type cycle and what I'd regard as an actual symphony.
One key motif, which is in fact a rhythmic one, is normally of repeated
notes (though for the sake of clarity the notes are more often varied
in the pedal), these starting with a long note, the length of notes
and the gaps between progressively decreasing, but the diminution
is in stages when it comes to the smaller note values. The effect
therefore is initially of an accelerando (though with other simultaneous
elements not speeding up), but the effect with the smaller note values,
and their groupings not always respecting bar lines, is unsettling,
even jarring. This is heard in its most intense and bizarre form in
the other-worldly hammerings and clangings in the An Teallach movement,
but can also be heard prominently in the opening movement. Another
motif that turns up in various places is the three-note 'question'
motif that is at the core of my previous work, 'The Unknown'.
And yes, two of the movements' titles do quite deliberately
give a nod towards Debussy's La Mer, though that reflects the
composer's sense of humour and not any particular musical resemblance.
Another reference in the work (5th movement) is towards Olivier Messiaen's
music - in the form of his idée fixé 4-note motif, which the
mountain wizard joyfully scoffs at.
Movements of the work
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The Call
This very brief but intense prelude is like a furnace or magma
chamber in which a series of part-formed musical ideas present
themselves but without real development; these are pretty well
all expanded and developed in later movements. Like a call to
prayer or communion, it presents no obvious ending, simply opening
a strongly beckoning doorway to the vision of the rest of the
work.
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Dawn to Dusk on Upper Loch Torridon
The idyllic beauty of this sea inlet is matched by the ancient
splendour and mystery of the surrounding mountains. The movement
arises out of and eventually returns into twilight, with the seemingly
ghostly menace of the dark mountain silhouettes. Passing shadows
change the light during the day, the mountains and reflections
sometimes looking friendly and beckoning, and at other times strange
and even forbidding.
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Slioch - The Spear
'Slioch' (pronounced approximately Shlee'ach) translates
from the Gaelic as 'spear', but the mountain actually looks much
more like an imposing castle, a fortification, than a spear -
at least in the classic view across Loch Maree.
This is where the flourish which opened the
work gets more attention and leads into several wild and dramatic
gestures. A contrasting section uses a contemplative improvisatory
idea with very intense-sounding modal chord progressions; it has
a somewhat monolithic or hectoring quality, but leads briefly
into a lighter, more dance-like idea in an irregular but catchy
7/8 metre. Within this section is a subsection which pre-echoes
one of the elements of the A' Mhaighdean music, reflecting the
proximity of that mountain in Slioch's spectacular summit panorama.
The movement ends seemingly prematurely with an abrupt thrust,
perhaps suggestive of... a spear, of course?
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Dialogue Between Mountains and Water
The climate of the Scottish Highlands is wet! In this area
water is everywhere. It seeps, trickles, pours and tumbles off
mountains; it babbles, it flows, it meanders, it lies in pools,
lochans and lochs all over the place. The weather chucks it down,
the wind sloshes it without fear or favour across moorland and
mountain crest. And it drips off crags, lowland trees and of course
my umbrella (when the wind is light enough for me to use it!).
And over a longer period it wears mountains away.
The subject of this movement could have been
treated in a largely theatrical way, with much turmoil and wild
gesture, but in the event the movement came out primarily contemplative
in character. The drama of this dialogue, therefore, is mostly
'inner drama', with some unexpected transitions and moments of
strange sonority and harmonic progression. It has several main
elements, which can reflect but a handful of the many aspects
of the intricate relationship between the mountains and water.
Much, but not exclusive, use is made of the mysterious chord and
scale which is explored in my Music from the Mountain Waters
and to some extent in my 4th and 5th Symphonies. One mysterious
passage, which seems to suggest looking into the depths of a loch
and sensing something of its history, bizarrely comes out with
part of the well-known Dies Irae chant.
The closing section of the movement is fixed
upon the strange chord already mentioned.
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Lightning Over Baosbheinn - Mountain of the Wizard
A virtuoso celebration of the power of the elements in the midst
of the rugged, craggy wilderness. The movement contains three
contrasting elements: (a) a wild dance with scurrying scale figures
(some gestures suggest that the wizard has a very youthful sense
of humour!); (b) a noble-sounding series of chords; (c) a mysterious
but mechanical-sounding melody ('borrowed' from my 5th Symphony)
whose variations form the core of the movement, these variations
interspersed with elements (a) & (b) and additional linking
ideas. A brief hazy pre-echo of the Liathach tune reflects the
proximity of Liathach in Baosbheinn's summit panorama. As to the
pronunciation of the mountain's name - here's a mess to annoy
purists. Syllable 1 would be spelled in German as Bösch; syllable
2 is approximately vénn, with the French é sound, though the latter
vowel tends to get anglicized to e as in egg.
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Peace Upon A' Mhaighdean - The Maiden
In one of the most inaccessible open places in Britain reachable
by walkers without technical climbing, our viewpoint is from the
top of a mountain that befits the splendour of its situation with
its breathtaking panorama of mountains and remote moorland sporting
much bare rock which is formed into all sorts of craggy knolls
bounding a confusion of lochans and streams, the more distant
expanse of sea and islands extending beyond on the west side.
More often than not the weather is wild to very wild here, yet
the heart of the wilderness encourages deep communion and opening
to the peace beyond all belief, all understanding...
The music is rarefied, both in its melodic
elements, which use more chromaticism than elsewhere in the work,
and in the sense of timelessness and detachment from the urgency
that marks some of the other movements. Three important elements
have been 'borrowed' from other works of mine: (1) a strange ascending
or descending chordal sequence motif with a rugged feel; (2) a
fugue on a soaring, more or less octatonic melody; (3) a slow
chord sequence (always played with a Gamba Celeste registration),
forming a sort of reflective melodic phrase, which was originally
a harmonization at one point in another of my works rather than
a melody in itself. Twice we hear quiet pre-echoes of the An Teallach
music, which reflects the prominence of the formidable hulk of
An Teallach in the view to the north-east from A' Mhaighdean,
and likewise at one point we have an echo of the Slioch music,
Slioch being a prominent feature in the other direction.
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An Teallach - The Forge
An Teallach, whose name translates as The Forge, is one of the
most formidable mountains in mainland Britain for the walker upon
summit crests. The idea of this movement came to me as I gazed
at a picture of the awesome spectacle of Toll an Lochain, a deep
corrie in the mountain bounded on three sides by the summit ridge,
part of the ridge being exceedingly narrow and somewhat pinnacled
on top, with tremendous weather-sculpted cliff buttresses of dark,
slightly reddish-tinged Precambrian sandstone plunging hundreds
of metres straight down to the lochan (small lake) in the foreground.
The vision I had as I mentally placed myself beside that lochan,
faced by the great sculpted walls of mountain, was that this whole
corrie was indeed the centre of a forge - even the furnace. A
tremendous unseen energy was emanating from the mountain, resonating
in this deep bowl and making it all glow hotter and hotter - red,
then orange, ever brighter... And meanwhile great clangings and
hammerings were ringing out from the heights and from the depths,
the sounds all reverberating and resonating within this corrie
and adding to the power and the heat. I saw this also as a metaphor
for the active creative source of the Universe and all life experience.
This movement commences with rushing wind,
and soon the awesome vision of the mountain emerges out of the
swirling mass of low cloud, some of the musical ideas already
being familiar from the opening movement. From the vision emerges
what I can only describe as a deeply felt prayer, which is a sort
of pre-echo of an idea in the next movement - perhaps something
to do with the lives that have been lost on this mountain - and
this leads into the final walk-out, leaving the mountain receding
behind.
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Summit Contemplation (On the Loss of a Fellow
Climber)
Not a lament in the ordinary sense, this movement is primarily
a hushed contemplation on impermanence, viewed from the heart
of the wilderness. It makes extensive use of the whole tone scale,
with (mostly) descending melismatic figures and evocative modal
chord sequences. In places the unsettling repeated-note motif
from the opening movement gives a very uneasy feel to the sublime
peacefulness. Even these beloved mountains, even the sea and the
sky, the Earth, and eventually the universe itself, will in time
pass away. Yet nonetheless there is something else within this
vision and the life experience, which endures - which is unborn
and undying...
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Finale & Postlude: Liathach, the Mighty Sentinel
The mountain's name is pronounced approximately Lee'aghach,
where, if I understand correctly, the gh is to g what ch, as in
loch, is to c, but quieter, and the emphasis is on the first syllable.
Not a mountain for the faint-hearted to traverse, Liathach stands
monolithically at the head of Upper Loch Torridon, very steeply
flanking Glen Torridon and sporting many small horizontal precipitous
terraces on its slopes, caused by the rock's bedding planes; parts
of its crest are formidably narrow and exposed for the walker.
The name Liathach, which translates as 'The Grey One', is rather
misleading, for the bulk of the mountain is of dark, slightly
reddish-tinged Precambrian sandstone, and it is only on parts
of the uppermost level of the mountain that quartzite outcrops
exist, but these give rise to a light grey scree spread about
on parts of its slopes.
The basis of this movement is a series of
variations on a short but vivid tune, which in its repetitions
has a certain monolithic quality which befits this mountain. The
final variation of the tune cuts off before the last phrase, and
here is inserted a repeat of the opening movement of the work
as a sort of postlude - but the last word is from the resumed
final variation of the main tune of the movement.
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