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Lyre Bird Motet(2003) |
24 voices a cappella – 5'
Commissioned by the BBC Singers as part of Edward Cowie’s role as Composer in Association.
First performance: 1 October 2003, Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London as part of World Voices 2003, a festival celebrating choral music from around the globe.
I lived in Australia for 12 years between 1983 and 1995. Many parts of this vast land (and seemingly infinite coastline) are close to being a true wilderness. It was often possible, and in my case, essential, to find places that seemed never to have been walked upon by human feet! In such places as these, the listener is drawn powerfully towards a realisation that such wild places are far from silent.
One such ‘wilderness’ was the King Valley in southern Victoria. In my first year in Australia I found myself perched on a high cliff looking down into a deep valley, threaded by the silver-lit King River that wound like a giant snake towards an endless horizon in the distant forests and plains. A grey-blue mist rose from the valley and above it skeins of pale aquamarine smoke (from bush fires) curled and twisted in languorous lines. Then, for the first time, I heard the voice of one of the world’s greatest songbirds, the Lyre Bird. First one, then two others began a prolix and seemingly improvisational chant. These competing songsters sang well after the sun had set and the moon had risen.
This motet ‘remembers’ and seeks to evoke that time with these magnificent birds and wondrous landscape. The entire motet is framed by a series of iterating chords (a modified chaconne in fact), and towards the close, three solo sopranos perform my own relocated and transformed notations from the songs of these wondrous birds.
Edward Cowie, 2003.