Devil’s Music (Contrafactum II) for orchestra, opus 46 (1992)
- 1. The Gap
- 2. Enchantment
- 3. Orsanmichele with Busker
- 4. …durch Sturm und Wind
- 5. Constellations
- 6. Burlesque
- 7. Chimera
- 8. O tu angelica socia . . .
The eight sections of The Devil’s Music should be seen more as signposts than movements in the conventional sense.
There are confusing collisions which can in themselves be moments of the utmost clarity. Very often these moments consist of irreconcilable synchronicities, such as standing in the alley outside Orsanmichele in Florence with the church’s three crazy tiny bells (one cracked) drowning out a flute playing busker (the bells are going nowhere, the busker is moving on) and the worrying chatter of thirty Year 12 Australian private school girls ‘come to see the centre’. (Perhaps the Australian condition is one of eternal tourism. When do we arrive?) This sort of cultural contradiction is inspirational for me. More and more my music has been influenced by cinema with its capacity for complex interleaving of stories, epigrammatic and discontinuous structures and blurring of past, present and future.
To set the scene for The Devil’s Music a little more:
Contrafactum is an old term – meaning to put new words to an old song. I use it because it describes a principle in some of my music. Namely, that of reusing material by starting with an earlier piece and grafting on new layers and making old structures bend to the whim of new invention. This guarantees a sort of continuity in the work whilst allowing new ideas to evolve. In this piece most of the old material is from my earlier work (some of which, in turn, was based on other things) with other allusions as much textual as musical – “durch Sturm und Wind” to Goethe’s Erlkönig (“Who rides so late through the night and the wind? It is the father with his child;”) and “O tu angelica socia . . .” to Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum (“Angelic comrade, how comely you are in the royal nuptials! I cover over, drive away or tread down all the filths of the Devil. Yours is a part in the building of heavenly Jerusalem flowering among shining lilies.”)
Every idea in The Devil’s Music is either moving towards or away from the listener. At various times the listener is on a wild roller-coaster ride or at the centre of a constellation of spinning satellites. The musical characters are like satellites that keep spinning, even when out of sight.
There are a few sounds that keep returning over and over: an immobile stationery structure – like rocks – with a surface – like water – running over it. Various source objects float through the piece: the sound of distant sirens, the beating of wings, the rumble of distant engines, calls and groans, half remembered hymns, and the wind-borne sound of bells.
Music that is devoid of large-scale harmonic motion has become dull for me. Two of the greatest strengths of Western music (and the two most difficult to meld with various Asian musics) are the expressive power that comes from moving from one chord to another and the capacity to lay out a large architectural structure with pitch centres. The question then is how to recapture that expressive force and that great grinding down of formal shape without going backwards.
For quite a while I have forced myself to stretch out ideas but that has begun to feel boring. Why should you eat the vegetables when desert looks so good. The piano Preludes of Scriabin (the other side of the coin to Webern) are a model in this – some are as short as 30 seconds but seem to contain the symphonic force of works 50 times as long. The Devil’s Music is not so much episodic as like being in a hall of mirrors – what is real and what is reflection can become such a paradox that you touch yourself to see if you – indeed – are real or a chimera.
I am fascinated by the power of music; it effects me physically, emotionally, intellectually – in every way. Philosophers, composers, musicians have always known of this power – music has the power to possess the listener; to possess and enthral. In spite of all the developments of technique and idea for composers since World War Two nothing has changed about that sort of power and beauty.
© Andrew Schultz, 1992
Browse other notes
- After Figaro for e flat clarinet, opus 23
- After Nina for clarinet, cello and piano, opus 73
- As for bass clarinet and piano, opus 63b
- As wave drives wave, opus 115
- Ash Fire – Contrapunctus IX for chamber orchestra, opus 62
- Attack for solo viola, opus 23a
- August Offensive for orchestra, opus 92
- B-bouncing for three clarinets, opus 20
- Barcarole for solo piano, opus 45a
- Barren Grounds, opus 36
- Bassoon Concerto, opus 117
- Bayu for piano, opus 109
- Beach Burial for choir and orchestra, opus 78
- Black River, opus 37
- Calling Music (Contrafactum I) for orchestra, opus 39
- Chamber Suite from The Children’s Bach, opus 74b
- Children’s Bach, opus 74
- Chorale, Demon, Beacon for bass koto and percussion, opus 51
- Christmas Song for French horn and piano, opus 65a
- Cloud Burning for winds, brass and percussion, opus 25
- Collide for bass clarinet and marimba, opus 42a
- Dark Chair, opus 47c
- Dark Well, opus 107
- Dead Songs for soprano, clarinet, cello, and piano, opus 45
- Deep blue and dirty for bassoon and piano, opus 87
- Descent of Mont Ventoux for string quartet, opus 107c
- Distant Shore, opus 44
- Ditties for voice and guitar, opus 17
- Diver’s Lament for orchestra, opus 52
- Dominion, opus 112
- Doppler Patrol, opus 111
- Duo Variations for viola and piano, opus 42
- Ekstasis for six solo voices, opus 43
- Elegy – The Moon Drowned for soprano, viola and piano, opus 102b
- Endling for orchestra, opus 72
- Ether Etude for sextet, opus 77
- Etudes Espace for organ, opus 30
- Everlasting Arms for clarinet and piano, opus 45b
- Falling Man/Dancing Man for organ and orchestra, opus 68
- Fast Talking: the last words of Dutch Schultz, opus 38
- Flock of Angels, opus 110a
- Four Inventions for piano, opus 74a
- Four Songs from Dead Songs, opus 45e
- From Fire Country for bass clarinet, opus 64c
- Garotte for orchestra, opus 10
- Going Into Shadows, opus 63
- Golden Dominion, opus 113
- Hamel Monash, opus 104b
- Harmonia belli, opus 104
- I am black for voice and piano, opus 63a
- I am writing in this book, Opus 88
- Indigo Invention for violin and cello, opus 83a
- Interludes for piano, opus 100 no. 2
- Journey to Horseshoe Bend, opus 64
- L’Oiseau Fantastique I for clarinet, violin, cello, chamber organ and piano, opus 17
- L’Oiseau Fantastique II for string quartet and piano, opus 18
- Lake moonrise for mezzosoprano and ensemble, opus 94
- Larrakia Lament, opus 105
- Le Molière Imaginaire for eight voices, opus 99
- Lines drawn from silence for soprano and ensemble, opus 55a
- little tree for children’s choir and orchestra, opus 65
- Maali – Concerto for oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon with orchestra, opus 101
- Magnificat for choir, opus 79
- Master Mariner, opus 45
- Meaning of Water for seven harps, opus 69
- Mephisto for sextet, opus 41
- Mind, opus 106
- Moon and ocean for piano, opus 100 no.3
- Moon Drowned for soprano, tenor and piano, opus 102c
- Music is a gentle hammer
- Night Birds for solo clarinet, opus 86
- Night Flight for violin and piano, opus 41a
- Nocturnes and Variations, for piano, Opus 96
- Nunc dimittis for choir, opus 89
- O Oriensis, opus 24
- Once upon a time… for orchestra, opus 70
- One Sound – Quintet for flute and strings, opus 90
- Paradise for soprano, cello and piano, opus 95
- Peace for orchestra, opus 93
- Piano Concerto, opus 114
- Prelude and Postscript for piano, opus 100 no. 1
- Quicksilver Serenade for violin, viola, cello and double bass, opus 66
- Respiro/Simple Ground for flute and piano, opus 48
- Ring Out Wild Bells, opus 75
- River of silence, opus 110b
- Sea Call for brass trio, opus 35
- Sea-Change for piano, opus 32
- Septet no. 1, opus 16
- Septet No. 2 (Circle Ground), opus 52
- She dances by the river, opus 103
- Silk Canons for sextet, opus 47b
- Silk for two sopranos, opus 47
- Silken Weave for trumpet and piano, opus 47a
- Simplify, Simplify, for choir and ensemble, opus 82
- Sleepers Wake, Karalananga for piano, opus 64b
- Solace for chamber orchestra, opus 7
- Sonata for piano – Night Visions, opus 13
- Sonatina for harp, opus 108
- Sonatina for solo clarinet, opus 6
- Sonatina for solo violin, opus 66a
- Song of Songs for 18 voices, opus 67
- Sound Lur and Serpent for brass and percussion, opus 98
- Southern Cantata, opus 102
- Southern Ocean for choir and orchestra, opus 60
- Spherics for sextet, opus 21
- St Peter’s Suite for symphonic winds, opus 97
- Stick Dance 1 for clarinet, marimba and piano, opus 22a
- Stick Dance 2 for clarinet, viola and piano, opus 22b
- Stick Dance 3 for clarinet, violin and piano, opus 22c
- Stille Sprache for soprano, violin and piano, opus 81
- Study After Septet for bass clarinet, opus 16a
- Suspended Preludes for double bass and piano, opus 49
- Symphony No. 1 – In Tempore Stellae, opus 59
- Symphony No. 2 – Ghosts of Reason, opus 76
- Symphony No. 3 – Century, opus 91
- The Line for choir and orchestra, opus 116
- Three Architects for choir, opus 91a
- Three Pieces for Two Pianos, opus 1
- Three Songs from the Maritimes for choir
- To the Evening Star – five songs for soprano and piano, opus 80
- Tonic Continent for violin, cello and piano, opus 61
- Twelve Variations for piano duet, opus 57
- Two Pieces for piano, opus 100 no. 4
- Two Welsh Lullabies
- Violin Concerto, opus 55
- Violin Sonata, opus 84
- Wild Flower for six part choir, opus 71
- Willow Bend for orchestra, opus 50
- Wind Quintet, opus 85
- Winter Ground for solo vibraphone, opus 58