The Music Compositions of Philip Goddard
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On this site are full details and downloadable / playable excerpts of major new classical music compositions that demonstrate clearly that true originality can still thrive in an accessible, modal idiom.

"Is this another of those awful discordant composers?"

— While this Composer never shuns dissonance for the sake of shunning it (in any misplaced conservatism or populism), neither does he use it anywhere for the sake of using it — i.e., in some misplaced striving to sound 'modernistic' or 'cool' or to be cheaply 'theatrical' in the way that so many fashionable contemporary composers do. In Philip Goddard's works, the presence of every dissonance (or indeed consonance) has to be 'earned'. That is, for it to appear at all, it must occur as an essential part of what is an overall 'thing' or process of beauty and harmony even in the course of its difficulties and conflicts.

A striking example of this is the Composer's 7th Symphony (Ancient Cry for Freedom), which must contain something like the highest proportion of dissonance in his whole oeuvre — yet the overall effect is of an immense beauty, harmony and dignity — the masses of inner clashes in the sound simply creating an 'electric' intensity in the experience. Similarly, what is surely the Composer's most conflict-riven musical utterance — the 3rd movement of the 6th Symphony (K2 — A Song of Striving and Endeavour) — is memorably melodious despite its no-holds-barred intensity, its many clashes and the three great waves of tumultuous 'battle' between humans and the tremendous might of the natural forces that threaten to overwhelm them.

You can find here symphonies, symphonic poems and other orchestral works, and works for choir, organ, saxophones (with piano), tuba, clarinet, flute… All have a particular quality in common — a certain intensity and vividness of colour resulting from the Composer's particular use of his open and flexible modal idiom and his particular outlook as a self-actualized and indeed enlightened person who vividly perceives not only the light but also the shadows cast by the light, and weaves the interaction of these, together with an exceptionally deep attunement with nature, into uniquely 'natural' and compelling works, such as Music From the Mountain Waters and The Unknown.

Indeed, it's more than just an 'attunement with nature' — a matter of his having sufficient depth and awareness in his perceptions that he apparently draws from powerful musical templates from deep, universal levels of human consciousness, so drawing from music from other civilisations even before our Solar System existed, and potentially even from other universes. He makes no claim for that being unique to him, but it does go a long way to help explain his having been able to compose accomplished and compelling works right from the start, without any formal music training at all. For more about that, see Musical Influences on Philip Goddard's Music & Literary Works.

The above musical motif, which appears just below this page's title, is actually the opening motif of The Unknown. It has there a strangely haunting timbre (on the organ), and it sounds quite a bit higher than it looks on the staff. It's like a clarion call — a call to attention — for one to listen intently to what is about to follow, its reverberations receding mysteriously into a pregnant pause before the 'journey' of the work starts unfolding in earnest. — And so also it's a very fitting initial 'call to attention', as it were, for this website, to initiate your own unfolding experience as you explore the works.

That motif doesn't actually play upon loading this or any other page, however, because automatically playing music on web pages is a very contentious issue and can be inconvenient if not downright vexatious for many website visitors who want to load pages quickly, and who want to choose what they do and don't listen to.

This music will lovingly challenge and stimulate the listener and open new horizons of awareness. Those looking for 'easy listening' or bland 'New Age' music won't find it here — though there's never any telling what the Composer might come out with next… …And in the meantime, if you like anything you hear of this music you can actually go to his Music Store and obtain a CD-quality download album containing it. Yes, the recordings are of simulated performances, but they are very much above-average in their realism for MIDI renderings of musical works, making for authentic musical experiences despite the inevitable shortcomings, like mono-reduced choir sections that can sing only 'Ahh' — and similarly mono-reduced string sections.

The Publisher for this music:

Philip Goddard is a member of the following:

Formerly The Group