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Circling the Circlings (1977) |
For cello and piano - c. 14'
Silence is essential at the beginning of the performance. ‘Circling the circlings of their fish,
Nuns walk in white and pray;’ In his book ‘The White Goddess’ Robert Graves uses this text to ‘demonstrate the peculiar workings of poetic thought’. It is not too extreme to equate such a notion with the workings of musical thought. In abstract terms, one revolving element circling another in a different orbit would suggest the primary motion of the whole universe. Manifested in terms of human experience, the mutual chastity of the nuns and fish implies a relationship within the act of passive and active ritual in their ‘circlings’. As a motivation for musical thought such considerations relate to structural elements. The piece explores the relationships which may evolve from two instruments of entirely different characteristics, using the same figurative material in opposing dimensions. It is essentially a palindrome containing within it two sections based on a variable realisation of eight fragments which are not palindromic. The Introduction presents three motivic ‘circles’ with the cello revolving slowly around the frenetic cascades of the piano. The first circle of fragments follows. Unlike the rest of the work the central section is continuous and rhapsodic containing instructions such as (unashamedly) ‘appassionato’. A high, sustained E flat in the cello marks the peak of this climatic section, where the crab turns and becomes a mirror of the preceding half of the work. The eight fragments revolve in echoes of the first circle and dissolve into the Coda, a reflection of the Introduction. The piece begins and ends in silence.
© Edwin Roxburgh