Instrumentation
3(II+III=picc).3(III=ca).3(III=bcl).3(III=cbsn) – 4331 – perc(2): 2 wdbl/tpl.bl/2 tgl/5 susp.cym/mark tree/t.bells/tam-t/guiro/4 c.bell/japanese temple bell/bongos/BD/gong – vib – glsp(=crot/tgl) – cel – elec keyboard – harp – strings
Availability
Score 0571557112 (fp) on sale, solo part, DX7IID disk and parts for hire
Programme Notes
If there is a ‘programme’ to this piece then it concerns man’s relation to bliss (ananda): presence, absence, pathways to and from it. Like much of the composer’s recent music it uses a chain of linked melodies for statement, transformation, polyphony and fragmentation. There is a ‘concertante’ group which consists of glockenspiel, crotales, electric keyboard, celesta, harp and vibraphone. This group, like a chariot of light, often takes the solo cello on a sort of celestial journey, lifting it as it were out of its dialectic with the main orchestra. In 2005 a new version was made which lightened the orchestration generally and added some material, such as extending a cadenza. This permits even more the role of the cello to be not the usual macho heroic one, rather a gentle, sensitive and receptive one, reflecting the response of bliss to what the cello-protagonist hears. It is dedicated to Frances-Marie Uitti.
Jonathan Harvey