The terrorist attack in the USA on 11th September 2001, and all its ramifications, was a challenge to many an artist to produce something positive out of the anguish and darkness of the time, to give new hope and light to humanity. I myself didn't feel immediately moved to compose anything in response, for I felt and indeed still feel that my definitive reply to all such events and situations is already written - the 7th Symphony (Ancient Chants of Compassion). Then about two weeks after the tragedy some kind soul dumped ten severed pigs' heads outside my local mosque. I'm not a Muslim, but when I heard about that on the local news I cried, and later that day went there to express solidarity with my fellow peace-loving brethren who happened to be Muslims.
Although I'd had a few musical motifs playing around in my mind since the tragedy, I still had no clear notion of composing a work at that point - but then I suddenly had an urge to explore in a CD-ROM full of instrument sound samples which a friend had recently sent me. Among these samples was one of what was described as 'church bell', though in truth it had never seen a church! It was actually faked, using two quite different 'tubular bell' sounds together, with different parameters set. Indeed, one of those supposedly tubular bell samples was itself a fake as it was actually a triangle (the percussion instrument) being used far below its normal pitch. When I sounded notes in the lower half of the keyboard with this 'church bell' sound, the extreme richness of harmonics, both real and artefacts, gave a tremendous expressive power and 'resonance' to even the simplest of phrases that I picked out. And then in the upper part of the range, the unmistakable sound of the triangle was evident in the sound, giving it an incisive brilliance.
And so I set to work with the new composition and had notionally completed it on my sequencer program in two days, the recording being made six days after I had started composing the work. It didn't matter to me whether or not the bell sound was exactly the same as any particular church bell. This work isn't for actual church bells and isn't intended to be performed with any other sound than the one that I used myself.
The work's title, De Profundis Clamavi, is Latin for "From the Depths I cried". Strictly speaking 'profundis' is singular, but it translates more naturally here into the plural.
The work begins and ends with the bell tolling, seemingly timelessly. A prayer-like idea is stated on the bells and then varied, and tension builds as more and more sense of polytonality comes in, much of it created by the harmonics of the bell sound. The trumpets enter awesomely with modal chord sequences, and the tensions between their own harmonies and all the clashes and consonances of the bells' harmonics produces at times an almost incandescent intensity, and at other times a deep and spacious mystery. As always in my music, I didn't seek to express any feelings of mine, but instead I simply let the sound of the bells direct me in putting the notes and phrases together in a meaningful way. This is not a comforting work in any simple sense, and it gives no nice resolution of its inner conflicts. After all, it is just a prayer...
This work would be easy to perform completely live, provided that a copy of the same bell sound were used via an electronic keyboard, but it should be noted that any other bell sounds may not have the particular loading of harmonics that this work really depends on. I have tried playing this work with a standard tubular bell sound and, while it sounds pretty good it really lacks much of the power and intensity of the realization using my special 'church' bell. One thing is for sure - it cannot be performed with real, physical, church bells, except by dint of an unheard-of miracle!
However, the easiest and in some ways preferable way to perform the work is to use the part for the bells already recorded. A CD recording of the bells part is on sale with scores of this work for this purpose. It is preferable to rendition from a keyboard because some low notes are used, which go beyond the bottom of even a concert grand piano, so the pre-recorded version is a trifle more authentic in its sound than the same samples being played on a keyboard.
