Symphony No. 8
(The Ferryman)

A joyful Himalayan nature poem…

A day in the life of an imaginary Himalayan ferryman…

Yes, this can be regarded as a symphony or symphonic poem — both terms are applicable. Let's not get stuck into labels and categorizations, and get into the music itself!

The inner vision that formed this symphony's basis was of a ferryman in a relatively level stretch of one of the Himalayan valleys, surrounded by mountains of breathtaking grandeur. He appears old and simple, but such appearances can be deceptive. Being no-soul, and on an ongoing process of self-actualization, he shines out with his fundamental nature as a properly functioning human, with a joyful vibrancy and clarity of thought that for the vast majority is more or less occluded by issues they're still carrying, or has been seriously attenuated by ongoing meditation.

Still inquisitive and adventurous, he's explored many routes among the surrounding mountains, and relates to passengers some of his hair-raising and uplifting stories from those explorations, and gives advisory assessments of some of those routes when asked.

At the same time, the image of the ferryman is also a metaphor for the genuine promoter of self-actualization, who serves as a ‘bridge’ (okay, a ferry, then! ) and pointer, enabling and empowering people to cross and get clear of the troubled waters of their own materialistically deluded perceptions towards the recognition and opening up their innermost nature and so finding the joyful freedom of self-actualization.

For the most part the music is gentle and with much repetition of individual elements, which fact will no doubt not be to the taste of some Western classical music listeners. However, this repetition has nothing material in common with the fashionable musical style called minimalism. Here the repetitions are like the bricks that make up a building — except that there is also variation in those repetitions, so that the whole structures that build up have a ‘living’, organic quality about them, with all changes having an inevitability about them.

As with Symphony 7, the main focus of the work is on short, chant or mantra-like melodies, which through repetition (with certain variations) and building up in canonic structures, convey a sense of the great scale and intricacy of Nature itself. A wilder, more ‘demonic’ variant of one of those passages is like a brief display of illusory manifestations sourced from the garbage, for which, through his (albeit far from full) self-actualization, the ferryman is for practical purposes out of reach — but again it could be seen simply as a passing storm in the ‘real’ world.

Either way, the ferryman's inner security remains unsullied, and the music ends in the peaceful simplicity with which it began. The text for the choral parts is the mantra known as the Vajra Guru mantra, om ah hum vajra guru padma siddhi hum, pronounced om ah hung benza guru pema siddhi hung (widely used in Tibetan Buddhism), which is repeatedly repeated.

The multitudinous character of certain sections is intentional, and in these I don't expect all details to be noticed in any one performance. By the same token, different performances, with their variations of balance, will inevitably bring out different details in the overall mass of sound. It would be a serious mistake, however, to assume that therefore the work is badly scored, and consequently to produce simplified versions of these passages, for in a simplified and supposedly clearer form they couldn't have the full visionary effect that I intend.