Music Compositions of Philip Goddard — www.philipgoddard-music.co.uk

List of compositions by Philip Goddard

With detailed programme notes and links for listening

At a glance…


This page lists all Philip Goddard's 'opus number' works to date, each with a link to listen to a MIDI rendition (in the case of his composer-composed works) or a CD-quality copy of the work's master copy (his Nature-Symphonies). They are presented grouped by category (chronological order within each of those).

Each work's individual page contains a link for listening to the work.

Note that, without prejudice to the standing and stature of the Composer's 'normal' works, the largest and indeed most important category of all is the final one, the pioneering Nature-Symphonies — though the majority of people currently lack the mental flexibility to be able to relate much to them. Those who can do so, however, may find them very constructively life-changing in their effects when listened to with full attention.

Preliminary notes

© All the works listed below (up to Op. 31) are Copyright, and so are the recordings. ©

Tired of unrealistic, mechanical MIDI
renditions of orchestral music?

Now you can change your view of what can be achieved on a computer. Listen to the recorded performances by the Invisible Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, directed and conducted by the Composer via a PC.

CD-quality downloads are available from the Music Store.

However, although still copyright, the Nature-Symphonies (Op. 32 onwards) all have no commercial publisher and I chose to make them available for download from Freesound under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence. Each of those works' respective pages here gives a link to its Freesound and YouTube page, so you can listen / download most conveniently.


 

Symphonies (orchestral & choral)


* denotes a work that was represented in the top 5 positions in the Choral chart at Peoplesound.com for over a year; ** indicates two excerpts in those top 5.
 

Orchestral


Extracted short works (Orchestral)

— duration between some 2½ & 4½ minutes
— (taken or adapted from the major works indicated)

  • Cloud Dance — from Symphony 1

  • Melancholic Musings — from Symphony 1

  • Reflections and Storm — from Symphony 3

  • Dreaming in the Dark Forest — from Symphony 3

  • Longings! Longings! Longings! — from Symphony 3

  • Rannoch Moor Prelude — from Symphony 4

 

Choral & Vocal

* denotes a work that has been represented in the top 5 positions in the Choral chart at Peoplesound.com for over a year.

Extracted short works (Choral)

— duration between some 2½ & 4½ minutes
— (taken or adapted from the major works indicated)

  • Before the Beginning of Time Was… — from Symphony 6

  • Rozabal Fugue — from Golgotha to Rozabal

  • Dies Irae and Chorale — from Et in Arcadia Ego

  • Solis Sacerdotibus… — from Et in Arcadia Ego

 

Chamber & Instrumental
(including organ)


  • Autumn Leaves and Spring Blossoms
    Op. 3 (1996) — 8¾'
    for chamber ensemble (wind quintet & string quartet)

  • Tune In a Stained Glass Window
    Op. 5 (1995, 2000) — 4'
    version for organ solo

  • Monument and Reflections
    Op. 6d (2003) — 21½'

    • duo versions for flute, clarinet or alto saxophone and piano
    • trio version for flute, clarinet and piano

    An early draft version of this (as a flute / piano duo) was the starting point of the 3rd Symphony.

  • The Unknown
    Op. 24 (1999) — 13¼'
    for organ & tuba
    Commissioned by Carson Cooman

    Also arrangements for bass clarinet, baritone or bass saxophone in place of the tuba

  • The Great Wilderness
    Op. 25 (2000) — 79'
    for organ solo — commissioned by Carson Cooman

  • De Profundis Clamavi (A Cry From the World)
    Op. 28 (2001) — 6½'
    for 'church bell' sound, pre-recorded or from an electronic keyboard, and 3 trumpets

  • The Seen and the Unseen
    Op. 29 (2002) — 34'
    for alto & tenor saxophone and piano — commissioned by Paul Wehage

    Also version for clarinet, bass clarinet and piano

    (I love it! … It's really unlike anything ever written for the saxophone — Paul Wehage)

  • Nordic Wilderness Journey
    Op. 30 (2002) — 30½'
    for tenor and contrabass saxophone (or tubax) and piano — commissioned by Jay Easton

    (The CD arrived today, and I have given it a listen. Both pieces [this & the previous work] are beautiful, and I am excited to play Nordic Wilderness Journey on the real instruments.
    I have to compliment you on your excellent MIDI work, by the way. Beautifully stormy, vivid, and colorful music, with what sounds like effective use of the instruments.     — Jay Easton)

  • Fallen Soldiers — In Memoriam Jehan Alain
    Op. 32 (2005) — 7'
    for 3 trumpets and organ
    (Arrangement of movement 8 of The Great Wilderness)

 

Cocking a snook at New Age 'healing' music!


Now a different type of music…

Although this might get marketed alongside 'New Age' music, it's really genuine classical music with an 'intuitive' approach to form and structure, carrying out a sort-of tongue-in-cheek pastiche of New Age music and using a range of the latter's sounds to produce something much more engaging and down-to-earth. It wouldn't be possible to produce scores of this work for performance; I used MIDI-only instruments via a sequencer program on the computer, including various bell sounds (natural, faked and processed), tuned whale and bird songs, some acoustic instruments (natural and processed), and of course a variety of synth pads.
 

Nature-Symphonies

Nature-generated 'stochastic' (probability-driven) electroacoustic works

Recording for Nature-Symphony 1
Recording session for what was to give rise to Nature-Symphonies 1 and 53, on the narrow Hunter's Tor ridge overlooking the so-called Teign Gorge (not an actual gorge at all), on 18 February 2013

A more radically different type of music…

More beautiful than any palace

These Nature-Symphonies are transformed versions of certain of the Composer's many Wind Chimes in the Wild field recordings (and the odd non-chimes natural soundscapes, including rutting stags and a short series of 'flies as musicians'), which, with that processing, function as fully-fledged powerfully effective and 'meaningful' music works that are an intriguing parallel to some of the most effective and powerful compositions of Iannis Xenakis — the big difference being that, by and large, the latter originated the stochastic matrices / structures and events himself, whereas this composer gave that task, including the basic performance, to 'Mother Nature'.

Typically, the transformative processing starts with producing a half-speed version of the original field recording. That new version indeed in itself can already be regarded as one of my Nature-Symphonies. Then I apply a cathedral, deep cave, or other relevant type of acoustic, using a particularly versatile and intuitive reverb VST plugin called OrilRiver, to such a level as to make the sounds seem to be in a more or less distant part of that virtual cathedral or other type of space, transforming the original sounds in the process. I choose the exact degree of that transformation for each individual recording, to get the best compromise between various opposing factors, which gets me the strongest goose-bumps (so to speak!).

Unlike conventionally composed symphonies, in general these don't have a contrived beginning and end, yet any deeply aware listener would find the music to cause their own intrinsic creativity to generate its own musical narrative subtext and 'storyline', so that beginnings and ends do thus readily become meaningful to any listener who's really connected with the music.

Likewise, these works are inevitably non-melodic, at least in the sense that people would normally mean. Yet any really 'open' and aware person would tend to find melodic motifs frequently suggested by this type of music, so their actual experience may well have some degree of melodic element.

However, the flies Nature Symphonies are crudely melodic, in the sense that the layers are organised such that the flies are each sounding a melodic motif, though with no more than nine or ten notes, in a fixed order and series of durations for the whole work.

Also, in certain cases only one set of chimes may be used, or the transformed recording may be of a chimes-free natural soundscape. For a work to be sensibly called a symphony (of any kind), it is necessary that there is a 'sounding-together' of different and indeed contrasting elements. In certain cases I may use a solo set of chimes, but it is still 'sounding-together' with the general natural soundscape, and indeed often with particular items within such soundscapes, such as bird or water sounds, or a differently treated version of the same recording.

 

Arrangements

  • Et In Terra Pax — Hymn for Hovhaness

    — by James Signorile
    Arrangement for small orchestra (originally composed for solo organ)

    This arrangement exists in score form but is currently unpublished, and my own publisher won't be taking it on. It is a short, deeply felt piece, which is technically simple and so should be particularly attractive for amateur performers. If you would definitely like to perform it, please get in touch with me so that we can sort something out.