NIGHTMASS
INCERTUM (text by Thomas Bolt) Where am I? I do not know where, but everything is moving-- Galaxies rushing away from each other like blast fragments, Every atom in my body spinning, Ten trillion cells carrying out electrochemical reactions, All particles everywhere always in flux, What stillness there is never quite still, What emptiness there is never quite empty, The great void still radiant from the first explosion-- Where am I? I do not know where, but there are names we use As if they were explanations-- Planet, star, galaxy, universe, Strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force, gravity; We say we are “here,” that we evolved among This ongoing oscillation of points of mass, These fields of energy; that we are warm because Light moves without mass over soundless distances. Where are we? Always amid the signal from the fundamental explosion Which surrounds us everywhere And must come from the singularity at the beginning Wherewhen all potential was one in the total atom. I do not know where we are, Only the names we give, But it surrounds us and we are made of it. Remember the mystery: |
Program Note
When I first met with Jonathan Sheffer from Eos Orchestra to discuss writing a piece for Eos one of the very first things he asked was “Do you want to write a mass?” It was, in truth, one of the last things I would have ever thought of writing, but when he suggested it I found it immediately appealing. I’ve always loved the musical form of the mass, particularly when in the hands of Old Masters like Josquin, Byrd or Lassus. But in setting a mass myself, I felt the need to bring something of the world I live in now into contact with this beautiful old text. And for me, that something was the way my view of the world was formed by science. When I see the night sky littered with stars I know that they are at unfathomable distances from earth, that some of these faint pinpricks of light are themselves entire galaxies made of billions of stars, that all these lights are rushing away from each other at incredible speeds, and that despite their remoteness I am intimately connected to them. Almost all the chemicals that make up my body where forged in an ancient generation of stars that exploded their mass out into the universe. . We are all made of stardust. It’s dizzyingly strange, but by all accounts true. It’s this sense of awe about the world we live in that I felt was somehow in tune with the religious awe that inspired the text of the mass, written so long ago. But there is a darker side too. It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of this description of physical world and in the end science admits to huge uncertainties. Belief forms the core of the Latin mass. At the heart of “Night Mass” is a mixture of wonder and doubt. The piece follows the ordinary sequence of movements in a mass except that the Credo is replaced by a new text written by Thomas Bolt. The movement is entitled “Incertum,” which means “uncertainty.” |
Scoring
chorus-0.3(3=corA).0.2-2.2.3.0-perc: crot/2cyms/vib/glsp/tamb/cowbell/xyl/wdbl/brake dr/guiro/bowed gong-strings .
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.
chorus-0.3(3=corA).0.2-2.2.3.0-perc: crot/2cyms/vib/glsp/tamb/cowbell/xyl/wdbl/brake dr/guiro/bowed gong-strings .
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.