Davies took audiences on a journey through the Tarot pack with her latest BBC commission. Taking inspiration from this game-like form of psychoanalysis, Wild Card journeys through life’s challenges, exploring the qualities and characters of each card.
Davies’ own fascination with the Tarot has led her to exploit its labyrinths in this musical adventure loosely based on the ‘Fool’s Journey’, a metaphor for the journey through life, as depicted by the images and archetypes found in a Tarot pack. Davies herself admits to finding the Tarot a useful guide to everyday life being ‘multidimensional and game-like.’The twenty-two Major Arcana (characters of the Tarot) are represented in Wild Card, though not necessarily in their numbered order. They appear in succession, but sometimes as many as three cards are played together. Some characters return again and again, underpinning other scenes, or creating dramas.
Wild Card represented Davies’ debut appearance at the BBC Proms on 8 September 2010, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jirí Bìlohlávek, alongside music by Wagner and Bruckner.
Press Comments:
'Tansy Davies's Wild Card was certainly the most startling, ear-tickling of this season's premieres… brilliantly etched musical images. Each was about a minute long, and was made of piled-up rhythmic tics clothed in low growling sonorities, with angular melodies tiptoeing above. The piece was ingeniously proportioned as a mobile, and there were enough fleeting musical interconnections to make this savage parade hand together as a whole.'
The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 9 September 2010
The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 9 September 2010
'…the piece was fun, with a riot of cunningly-contrived blown, shaken, plucked, and struck textures…'
The Independent (Michael Church), 9 September 2010
The Independent (Michael Church), 9 September 2010
Also for the Proms
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme featured Davies in discussion with Roger Wright in the run up to the premiere of Wild Card, and there was a Proms Plus pre-concert event where Davies in conversation with Tom Service, discussed her Proms commission and introduced her chamber works grind show (electric), salt box and neon, performed by musicians from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
This is only Davies second large-scale work for orchestra, her first Rift – a BBC Concert Orchestra commission was performed as part of their Discovering Music series in 2008 at the Watford Colosseum.