Editions de la Fabrique MusiqueFor many years I have had an annual spring visit to the Scottish Highlands. This symphony is composed from some of the music that haunted and pursued me each year as I walked alone over mountains and remote moor. It is not 'Scottish' music, but embodies one particular Englishman's response to remote solitude and adventure in the Highlands. Although some elements of the music have a descriptive effect, the work was composed and should be listened to as 'absolute' music. If it additionally inspires in anyone some new experience of the Scottish Highlands or indeed wilderness areas in general, then that would be a bonus. The movement titles, therefore, are quite non-essential.
The symphony is very unusual in that it has a (normally quiet) drone, which is present, on and off, for most of the work; even when it is not sounding explicitly it is usually still implicit in the music, or occasionally it may be in a higher or lower octave than normal. On the face of it this drone has nothing to do with bagpipes and is emphatically not a clever device I've put into the music to be 'different'. It is an intrinsic part of the music that emanated from the land and resonated within me out there in the wilds. It is not an idle tinnitus but the hum of a veritable dynamo from which musical ideas erupt bristling with electricity.
The basic drone - a low G# - is the bottom of the interval of a minor 7th, which latter permeates the first movement and parts of the second. In the final movement the G# drone is also the top of a tritone, which helps give this movement its remarkable brooding atmosphere.
The
3 Movements
1. Springtime in Knoydart
Like the final movement, this one is a crucible into which a series of related motifs are boiled together to produce new ones. Thus its overall form is not easily described, for its shape is defined by development and growth of the various ideas. The symphony opens with the drone marked on the timpani and three cuckoos answering each other in a remote glen. The first is singing the interval of a major 3rd starting on E, at the actual pitch I observed a cuckoo singing at in the Highlands. The other two add successive minor 3rds below that, establishing the chord which is to permeate the movement and to a large extent the whole symphony. After a few bars the cuckoo calls rise by a whole tone so that the bottom note of their chord is G# and therefore underpinned by the drone. The chord spans a minor 7th, and this interval is never long out of earshot. Out of this dynamo strange modal melodies and harmonies emerge, evoking something of the dramatic and mysterious character of this wild and craggy mountainous landscape with its phantasms and strange bird calls over the lochs - and surely towards the end we hear a hint of the ferry boat taking another group of hikers across a shimmering loch for a remote mountain adventure.
As to what is an authentic interval for a cuckoo simulation to be sounding, I have heard cuckoos singing anything from a major second (a whole tone) to a perfect fourth - though the major third appears to be commonest, closedly followed by the minor third.
2. A long walk from a small town, over mountain and moor
After that has come to earth, the ostinato
from the folk-like idea reappears, but this time a quite different and
more serious folk-like improvisation starts, but is cut off by a
grander re-emergence of the 'mountain' theme. When that has subsided
the folk-like improvisation resumes, with some remarkably singable
moments, and it is mostly in this section that the wordless choir is
heard.
An interesting observation is that the 6/8 pulse of this central
section, which seems to reflect the long walk of the movement's title,
is much slower than my normal walking pace. I found that in fact it
precisely matches my pace during steep mountain ascents.
Eventually the mountain theme breaks in again, but this time in
combination with part of the folk-like improvisation, the awesome
effect of this combination sounding like a full organ, though there is
definitely no organ playing.
Finally the first folk-like theme returns, and the bell which commenced
the movement re-emerges and fades away into the distance.
Summary plan of the movement:
- Bell tolling - establishes minor 7th;
- Folk-like improvisation 1;
- Mountain theme;
- Folk-like improvisation 2 (cut off);
- Mountain theme;
- Folk-like improvisation 2 (resumed & extended);
- Mountain theme & part of 6., combined;
- Return of 2.;
- Return of 1.; fades into distance.
3. Alone across Rannoch Moor to Ben Alder
This movement is the longest, most weighty and highly charged of the three. It has a colour and mood very much of its own, for it is permeated by the diminished triad - a chord of three minor 3rds (underpinned as always by the G# drone), and at the same time the drone often incorporates the D below, so colouring parts of the movement with the tritone.
After a slow introduction that evokes not only a huge space but seems to speak of great human dramas of bygone times, the 'action' starts with a wild - almost ferocious - idea in 6/8. It is in fact derived from the demonic ostinato motif that commences Prokofiev's terrifying 3rd Symphony.
It would be too confusing for me to
attempt here a description of the movement's structure, which has been
worked out intuitively and not to any traditional design, but I can
point to the existence of three contrasting groups of melodic material,
as follows:
- the wild 6/8 already mentioned;
- a variety of tormented motifs, like the lonely cries of ghosts in search of something precious that they are destined never to find;
- more noble elements, suggestive both of the mountains and of human endeavour and achievement; these are mostly descending or ascending chordal sequences, usually on the strings though often accompanied by melodic ornamentations and comments on the woodwind.
