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

Nature-Symphony 32
— Splendour of the Perpetual Transmuter at work and play

Opus 65 (2024) — Timing: 66'
derived from a field recording of sextet of metal wind chimes and separately recorded bamboo wind chime


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Basic details


A different recording taken during same session as the original for this work
Another recording taking place, in the same session as the recording used in this work.

  • Instrumentation —  Part of field recording of sextet of metal wind chimes, used as 3 layers, plus part of separate field recording of a solo bamboo chime.

  • Original field recording location / dates:

    • Metal chimes: 15 April 2014, high up on north side of Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK.
    • Bamboo chime: 21 November 2024, ditto, on Piddledown.

  • Processing and deployment: Metal chimes deployed in three differently pitched layers, while the bamboo chime constitutes a fourth layer with pitch reduced to deep bass level. I give specifics about the recording, chimes used, and the subsequent processing, on my Freesound page for the work.

  • Distinguishing features — Effectively a vast cosmic vision, which has a certain underlying commonality with certain works of Iannis Xenakis, such as Kraanerg and Nomos Gamma. The particular metal chimes combination guarantees a fair amount of dissonance, and the use of three differently-pitched layers of that recording ensures a high level of it. But yet, the seething 'protoplasm' of dissonance is constantly spewing out meaningful sonorities, intervals, and even at least suggestions of harmonic progressions or sequences. In quieter, more reflective sections we hear that more clearly, with moments of delicacy and strongly suggestive of human tenderness.

    To many this work would seem repellent, and indeed the stuff of horror movies — but we need to remember that nothing that isn't physically traumatic (such as a car crash or severe tornado hit experienced first-hand) is inherently scary or horrific. In general life, scariness and horror are simply the perceivers' emotional responses to things that are beyond their arena of familiarity or understanding. They're afraid of what they haven't yet understood or attuned themselves to.

    Here the writhing, seething dissonances are constantly creating all manner of more obviously beautiful sounds, in just the same way that, say, the layered canonic sections in my Symphony 7 do on a much simpler level. Many people perceive beauty in rugged landscapes, and likewise, where music parallels that natural ruggedness, the more aware and deeply-attuned people find a transcendent beauty in that ruggedness, where sensitively handled in the composition process.