THE GREAT WILDERNESS
— Nine Mountain Tableaux —

Scottish mountains on the organ — and free from religion!

This work is a second commission from Carson Cooman, and he gave its world premiere performance in Rochester (NY), 22nd July 2002. When he told me he wanted a work for organ, I felt this to be a challenge to produce a major organ cycle similar in length and scale of conception to those of Messiaen. Another similarity to the Messiaen cycles would be my treatment of organ sound — not because I wanted to imitate Messiaen's music, but because a creative approach to organ sounds is what excites me. The organ works of Jehan Alain have been similarly inspirational for me.

I have little interest in the well-known 'church organ' sound produced by what is known 'in the trade' as plenum registrations — well, except as used as an occasional contrasting element among the whole panoply of available sounds.

Carson Cooman asked me if at all possible to compose the work for an organ of very modest specifications so that he could perform it in many churches after the premiere; it's all very well writing works that require a big organ, but the opportunities for performing such works can be few and far between. So I had a double challenge of the seeming impossible — not only to compose a fairly lengthy organ cycle of big conception and with a great variety of sound colours, but to do this on a modestly specified two-manual organ.

But then, as I set up all the various plausible combinations on this small organ, it began to look as though with care and some very unusual combinations and couplings I could indeed meet the full challenge. I should say, though, that in the right hands the work will still sound closer to my full intentions when played on one of the larger organs, with a greater range of available registrations, greater dynamic range, and greater availability of big pipes (16- and 32-foot ranks) for the 'earthquake' effects that, if sparingly and sensitively applied, can add so much to the breadth and spaciousness of the overall sound.

Experience with working on The Great Wilderness on an organ of the very specifications that the work was written for, however, caused Mr Cooman to revise his views somewhat, because he felt that in practice such a long work really does require the greater variety of sound that he would have been able to get out of a larger organ — though this limitation wouldn't be felt so much when playing just a movement or two in a recital.

The different movements of the cycle are based on impressions of an area of the Scottish Highlands that I (as a naturalist and mountain walker) explored for the first time in May 2000 — Torridon and the surrounding area, taken broadly from Applecross to Dundonnell, and containing a particularly remote area that is sometimes referred to as The Great Wilderness, in the midst of which is a mountain called A' Mhaighdean (The Maiden, pronounced À Vétchyan), a trek to which for cognoscenti represents the heart and quintessence of remote wilderness experience, at least as far as it goes in Britain.

Many of the melodic ideas in the different movements arise from the fragments presented in the opening movement, and the thematic connectedness makes the whole work something intermediate between a Messiaen-type cycle and what I'd regard as an actual symphony. One key motif, which is in fact a rhythmic one, is normally of repeated notes (though for the sake of clarity the pitches of the particular sequence are more often varied in the pedal), these starting with a long note, the length of notes and the gaps between progressively decreasing, but the diminution is in stages when it comes to the smaller note values.

The effect therefore is initially of an accelerando (though with other simultaneous elements not speeding up), but the effect with the smaller note values, and their groupings not always respecting bar lines, is unsettling, even jarring. This is heard in its most intense and bizarre form in the other-worldly hammerings and clangings in the An Teallach movement, but can also be heard prominently in the opening movement. Another motif that turns up in various places is the three-note 'question' motif that is at the core of my previous work, The Unknown.

And yes, two of the movements' titles do quite deliberately give a nod towards Debussy's La Mer, though that reflects the composer's sense of humour and not any particular musical resemblance. Another reference in the work (5th movement) is towards Olivier Messiaen's music — in the form of his idée fixe 4-note motif, which the mountain wizard joyfully scoffs at.

The Great Wilderness was composed particularly for performance in reasonably reverberant spaces, though not with really wallowing reverberation. Therefore, while I give my blessing to performances given in any venue, if a sound is sought for the work that is as true as possible to my intentions, then 'dry' acoustics are best avoided, especially for making recordings.

Registrations. Although fairly precise registrations are indicated in the score, these are meant to be a guide only to the sort of sound that is required, and prospective performers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with my own simulated performance of the work (see near top of this page) to get more ideas about this — bearing in mind, though, that some registrations chosen in live performances may actually be closer to my intentions than particular sounds that I obtained in my simulated performance.

This latter point is particularly pertinent because although the work was written for a quite small and modest organ specification, in fact any such lengthy work really requires use of the greater range of colours available on a larger organ to do it full justice.

The 9 Movements

1. The Call

This very brief but intense prelude is like a furnace or magma chamber in which a series of part-formed musical ideas present themselves but without real development; these are pretty well all expanded and developed in later movements. Like a call to prayer or communion, it presents no obvious ending, simply opening a strongly beckoning doorway to the rest of the work. However, unlike any call to prayer, this movement is the starting point and nucleus of the unfolding of an expansive creative process that broadens horizons in every direction to which one directs one's gaze.

Unusual registrations are used, with mutation ranks unsupported by fundamentals or else coupled to a pedal subbass, also with the strange and dramatic sound of the trumpet rank's low register.

2. Dawn to Dusk on Upper Loch Torridon

The idyllic beauty of this sea inlet is matched by the ancient splendour and mystery of the surrounding mountains. The movement arises out of and eventually returns into twilight, with the seemingly ghostly menace of the dark mountain silhouettes. Passing shadows change the light during the day, the mountains and reflections sometimes looking friendly and beckoning, and at other times strange and even forbidding.

3. Slioch — The Spear

'Slioch' (pronounced approximately Shlee'ach) translates from the Gaelic as 'spear', but the mountain actually looks much more like an imposing castle, a fortification, than a spear — at least in the classic view across Loch Maree.

This is where the flourish that opened the work gets more attention and leads into several wild and dramatic gestures. A contrasting section uses a contemplative improvisatory idea with very intense-sounding modal chord progressions; it has a somewhat monolithic or hectoring quality, but leads briefly into a lighter, more dance-like idea in an irregular but catchy 7/8 metre. Within this section is a subsection that pre-echoes one of the elements of the A' Mhaighdean music, reflecting the proximity of that mountain in Slioch's spectacular summit panorama. The movement ends seemingly prematurely with an abrupt thrust, perhaps suggestive of… a spear, of course?

4. Dialogue Between Mountains and Water

The climate of the Scottish Highlands is wet! In this area water is everywhere. It seeps, trickles, pours and tumbles off mountains; it babbles, it flows, it meanders, it lies in pools, lochans and lochs all over the place. The weather chucks it down, the wind sloshes it without fear or favour across moorland and mountain crest. And it drip-drip-drip-drips off crags, lowland trees and of course my umbrella (when the wind is light enough for me to use it!). And over a longer period it wears mountains away.

The subject of this movement could have been treated in a largely theatrical way, with much turmoil and wild gesture, but in the event the movement came out primarily contemplative in character. The drama of this dialogue, therefore, is mostly 'inner drama', with some unexpected transitions and moments of strange sonority and harmonic progression. It has several main elements, which can reflect but a handful of the many aspects of the intricate relationship between the mountains and water.

Much, but not exclusive, use is made of the mysterious chord and scale that is explored in my Music from the Mountain Waters and to some extent in my 4th and 5th Symphonies. One mysterious passage, which seems to suggest looking into the depths of a loch and sensing something of its history, bizarrely comes out with more than a hint of the well-known Dies Irae chant.

The closing section of the movement is fixed upon the strange chord already mentioned. I'll award Brownie points (!) to whoever identifies the reference in this section to (not a full quote from) a certain electronic work of another composer — a seemingly very unlikely composer to be associated with my music. One cryptic hint: the idea that I've referred to in that electronic work is itself taken and transformed from another work by that same composer, for string orchestra, 2 trombones, woodblock and xylophone…

5. Lightning Over Baosbheinn — Mountain of the Wizard

A virtuoso celebration of the power of the elements in the midst of the rugged, craggy wilderness. The movement contains three contrasting elements: (a) a wild, even crazy dance with scurrying scale figures (some cheeky gestures suggest that the wizard has a very youthful sense of humour!); (b) a noble-sounding series of chords; (c) a mysterious but mechanical-sounding melody ('borrowed' from my 5th Symphony) whose variations form the core of the movement, these variations interspersed with elements (a) & (b) and additional linking ideas.

A brief hazy pre-echo of the Liathach tune reflects the proximity of Liathach in Baosbheinn's summit panorama. As to the pronunciation of the mountain's name — here's a mess to annoy purists. The first syllable would be spelt in German as 'Bösch'; the second syllable (forgetting German pronunciation now) is approximately 'vénn', with the French e-acute sound, though the latter vowel tends to get Anglicized to 'e' as in 'egg'.

6. Peace Upon A' Mhaighdean — The Maiden

In one of the most inaccessible open places in Britain reachable by walkers without technical climbing, our viewpoint is from the top of a mountain that befits the splendour of its situation with its breathtaking panorama of mountains and remote moorland sporting much bare rock that is formed into all sorts of craggy knolls bounding a confusion of pools, little lakes (called lochans in Scotland) and streams, the more distant expanse of sea and islands extending beyond on the west side. More often than not the weather is wild to very wild here, yet the heart of the wilderness encourages deeply based harmony with Nature and opening to the peace beyond all belief, all understanding…

The music is rarefied, both in its melodic elements, which use more chromaticism than elsewhere in the work, and in the sense of timelessness and detachment from the urgency that marks some of the other movements.

Three important elements have been 'borrowed' from other works of mine: (1) a strange ascending or descending chordal sequence motif with a rugged feel; (2) a fugue on a soaring, more or less octatonic melody, taken from Golgotha to Rozabal; (3) a slow chord sequence (always played with a Gamba Celeste registration), forming a sort of reflective melodic phrase, which was originally a harmonization at one point in another of my works rather than a melody in itself.

Twice we hear quiet pre-echoes of the An Teallach music, which reflects the prominence of the formidable hulk of An Teallach in the view to the north-east from A' Mhaighdean, and likewise at one point we have an echo of the Slioch music, Slioch being a prominent feature in the other direction.

7. An Teallach — The Forge

An Teallach, whose name translates as The Forge, is one of the most formidable mountains in mainland Britain for the walker upon summit crests. The idea of this movement came to me as I gazed at a picture of the awesome spectacle of Toll an Lochain, a deep corrie in the mountain bounded on three sides by the summit ridge, part of the ridge being exceedingly narrow and somewhat pinnacled on top, with tremendous weather-sculpted cliff buttresses of dark, slightly reddish-tinged Precambrian sandstone plunging hundreds of metres straight down to the small lake ('lochan') in the foreground.

The vision I had as I mentally placed myself beside that little lake, faced by the great sculpted walls of mountain, was that this whole corrie was indeed the centre of a forge — even the furnace. A tremendous unseen energy was emanating from the mountain, resonating in this deep bowl and making it all glow hotter and hotter — red, then orange, ever brighter… And meanwhile great clangings and hammerings were ringing out from the heights and from the depths, the sounds all reverberating and resonating within this corrie and adding to the power and the heat. I saw this also as a metaphor for the active creative force of the Universe and all life experience — a powerful vision indeed!

This movement commences with an impression of rushing wind, and soon the awesome spectre of the mountain emerges out of the swirling mass of low cloud, soon with weird hammerings and clangings — some of the musical ideas already being familiar from the opening movement.

Out of the fading away of that intense picture emerges a reflective and deeply serious idea, as though one has some inner burden still to address and resolve, which gets in the way of yet being able to come away from the mountain with the great joyful exhilaration that one could reasonably expect An Teallach to inspire. Effectively this serious idea is a sort of pre-echo of an idea in the next movement — perhaps something to do with the lives that have been lost on this mountain — and this leads into the final walk-out, leaving the mountain receding behind.

8. Summit Contemplation (On the Loss of a Fellow Climber)

Not a lament in the ordinary sense, this movement is primarily a hushed contemplation on impermanence, viewed from the heart of the wilderness. It makes extensive use of the whole tone scale, with (mostly) descending melismatic figures and evocative modal chord sequences. In places the unsettling repeated-note motif from the opening movement gives a very uneasy feel to the peacefulness of Nature. Even these beloved mountains, even the sea and the sky, the Earth, and eventually the universe itself, will in time pass away. Yet nonetheless there is something else within this view and indeed the life experience, which endures — which is unborn and undying…

It's been remarked to me that this movement is so powerfully evocative and deeply felt that surely it reflects an actual experience I myself have had. The answer to this, as I understand things now, is that it does not, but what it does reflect is likely to be an experience of one of a number of parasitic 'lost' human consciousnesses (of people who had died at various times in human history)* that had been attached to me since the first two years of my life, or/and an impression that I had picked up from some bit of 'story' generated from the massive pool (I'd be inclined to say, 'cesspit') of primary archetypes. I knew nothing at all about this, however, when I composed the work. To my understanding, these sources commonly provide material for composers and other artists generally.

9. Finale and Postlude: Liathach, the Mighty Sentinel

The mountain's name is pronounced approximately Lee'aghach, where, if I understand correctly, the 'gh' is to 'g' what 'ch', as in 'loch', is to 'c', but quieter, and the emphasis is on the first syllable. Not a mountain for the faint-hearted to traverse, Liathach stands monolithically at the head of Upper Loch Torridon, very steeply flanking Glen Torridon and sporting many small horizontal precipitous terraces on its slopes, caused by the rock's bedding planes; parts of its crest are formidably narrow and exposed for the walker.

The name Liathach, which translates as 'The Grey One', is rather misleading, for the bulk of the mountain is of dark, slightly reddish-tinged Precambrian sandstone, and it's only on parts of the uppermost level of the mountain that quartzite outcrops exist, but these give rise to a light grey scree spread about on parts of its slopes.

The basis of this movement is a series of variations on a short but vivid tune, which in its repetitions seems to have a certain monolithic quality that befits this mountain. The final variation of the tune cuts off before the last phrase, and here is inserted a repeat of the opening movement of the work as a sort of postlude — but the last word is from the resumed final variation of the main tune of the movement.