PERPETUUM & MOUVEMENT (2006)

The Organ, a large, implacable and infinitely complex mechanical beast of an instrument, lends itself like no other to blending with electronics. In PERPETUUM, the sound of the organ is blended with electronic samples, which realise possibilities unknown to the acoustic instrument, such as glissandi, microtones and filtering, as though they were a perfectly part of the instrument itself. As its title insinuates, much of the composition takes the form of a Perpetuum mobile, a seemingly ceaseless motoric rhythm that drives the music forward. This alternates with massive chordal aggregates, making the work a sort of modern and grandiose toccata.

MOUVEMENT is a short, single-movement work for organ. Its timbres are dominated especially by trills and clusters in the stratospheric 1′ register of the organ. The high clusters produce an audible interference that is almost as prominent as the notes themselves, resulting in a highly unconventional sound. In MOUVEMENT, these timbres tend to be used in conjunction with very rapid, ornamental figurations. A second, contrasting musical element consists of repeated chords, stacked in thirds and layered over each other in contrasting rhythmic proportions. These disparate and often elusive elements are frequently held together by sustained pedal points. These last, however, vanish just before the end, leaving the piece to taper off into the stratosphere.

Alwyn Tomas Westbrooke