I had never had any sort of positive resonance with the sound of the saxophone, nor really with writing for piano and one or two wind instruments. But when the saxophone virutoso Paul Wehage got enthusiastic about my music and urged me to compose something for saxophone so that he could play and record and indeed publish it, then I had to stop and do a rethink, at least to carry out an experiment. My musical conception is pretty well always large scale and visionary rather than intimate or romantic, so the big challenge to me was to see if I could either write something intimate and lyrical for a change or, on the other hand, to bring the greater, more cosmic vision into such a small and seemingly restrictive medium. In the event the latter option won the day. What has emerged is a set of four pictures, each of which has its own deeper layers of 'meaning'. The overall progression through the work is from a sense of struggle and catastrophe, through contemplation and acceptance, towards the innermost timeless peace and joy that transcends all worldly joys.
The four Movements
1. Search Party on the Glacier
Although this movement has a certain urgency and dramatic quality, its title is not meant to indicate a specific picture or story line. Rather, the title reflects a certain elemental severity and a deeper content that is something to do with the mystic's attunement to the wilder, more rugged aspects of the cosmos. Some of the ideas in this movement are harsher and distorted versions of what emerges in more flowing, harmonious form in the final movement, and also two motifs from the first movement of my 4th Symphony find a dramatic place in the action. On a smaller scale, the movement is a parallel of the third movement of my 6th Symphony, in its reflection of some sort of battle or struggle against the elements, over which hangs the cloud of possible catastrophe. However, in marked contrast with the overall severity, this movement ends with a serene hazy pre-echo of one of the radiant ideas in the final movement.
2. Contemplation - Springtime in Weston Combe
After an initial seemingly tormented outburst a slow canonically organized rising chromatic scale* leads us gradually from darkness to a springtime scene on one of my regular long day hikes on the South Devon coast of England. A small set of church bells is ringing in the distance inland, somewhere up the wooded valley. The ongoing ringing of such bells plays tricks upon one's perceptions, especially with the varying effects as gusts of the breeze come and go, and the different effects as the sound comes round different objects and landforms as one continues on the walking route. So, although there are theoretically only three bells with clear pitches plus a bass one giving a sort of resonance to the whole sound, there seem to be other bells adding in too.
Against this backdrop the hypnotic 'dripping tap' song
of the chiffchaff announces itself, then with the chaffinch adding in.
These lead into three brief intense passages, one of which is like a
timeless window into another world entirely. In due course the
intensity subsides into the serenity of the church bells, the
chiffchaffs and chaffinches. The movement ends somehow in mid-air as
though really continuing out of earshot. As in some of my other works -
especially the 4th Symphony - an obsessive 'pedal' note, in this case
the bass in the church bells, seems to suggest some deep longing, which
at the end is left hanging over the edge, emphasizing that longing...
* A device which also forms the basis of my Meditation on the Clear Light and Sunrise on Atlantis, one of the movements of my Ascending cycle.
3. Processional - At the Foot of the Volcano
Underlying this monolithic movement are two images: the vajra of Tibetan Buddhism, and a saying from Zen Buddhism:
If you understand, things are as they are. If you do not understand, things are as they are.
Unrelenting series of chords on the piano, both constantly changing yet also not changing at all, are occasionally cut with powerful lightning bolts. The vajra - a sceptre-like ritual object - symbolizes the sudden, direct power of the thunderbolt and the clarity and hard cutting edge of diamond, both of which images further symbolize directness and effortless power in cutting straight through all worldly delusion and perceiving directly the ultimate nature of 'reality'. Against this background the saxophones weave and improvise, including a few ideas remembered from the earlier movements - inevitably with the chaffinch getting in on the act - but in this context everything that the saxophones have to say sounds remarkably inconsequential.
Late in the movement the saxophones improvise on an idea derived from Avalokiteshvara's incantation in my Tears of Avalokiteshvara - significantly, his compassionate declaration to all the buddhas that he would not allow himself to reach full enlightenment until all other beings had done so and thus released themselves from all earthly suffering.
The final lightning bolt is no real ending, for things continue to be as they are...
4. Dance of the Life Force
This is the most extrovert and easy-flowing movement of the work, mostly based on a vigorous melody in a mode which imbues the music with a particular radiant atmosphere; it may be remembered from the first movement, in which it had appeared in a harsh and menacing form. In a few places the song of the chaffinch plays a part, and at the end the chiffchaff joins in too.
