The 1980s
receded in another
spell of great perturbation and confusion. These three, and
the Violin Concerto, op. 70, are all substantial pieces, with one
exception extremely demanding to write, and all four got in each
other's way, crossing the wires, pulling in contradictory directions.
The huge span of Entrance: Carousing:
Embarkation for the massive massed woodwinds, brasses
and percussions of the U.S.A. style symphonic band was also
fraught with trouble despite the piece's extrovert nature and
abrasive exuberance.
Only The Spacious Firmament was
written with fluency and pleasure: helped by having words, of
course. It caused deep chagrin
that this commission for the inauguration of the Rattle / Birmingham
Symphony Hall wasn't in the event used for the occasion
("the
Royal Bladder", offered as reason, seemed more like excuse). The
special words to go with Dryden's
salute to Harmony at the start seemed pointless in later performances
(they are in fact optional). Though
Blake's Auguries
of Innocence will never lose its sting; nor
the vision of the Peaceable Kingdom that follows, its milk-and-honey
sweetness; nor the concluding vision from Tennyson of
the planets and the epochs rolling their eternal courses, its
grandeur.
Worst was the Double Concerto,
another attempt at "all-modern" intervallic / proportional
construction without stylistic allusion or play of quotation. In
the end it was recourse to these that saved the endeavour from
dying of self-boa-constriction (up its own thingmajig). The
most futile effort of all was prolonged pursuit of an extended
finale wherein the two soloists, who'd alternated throughout
the first movement and come erotically together in the second,
would tear each other apart in violent destruction — hence the
working title Cockfight. Eventually
the two-movement shape sufficed: but it took ages, and much useless
labour and worry, to reach this obvious conclusion. |