n y c t a p h o n i a

Instrumentation:             Sop, Vla & Pno

Duration:                       c. 24’

Performance details:      26.05.2005, Haden Freeman Concert Hall, RNCM, Manchester, NYX - Ella Kirkpatrick; sop, Carmen Craven-Grew; vla, Angela Brzezinka; Pno.

                                    12.06.2005, Haden Freeman Concert Hall, RNCM, Manchester, NYX - Ella Kirkpatrick; sop, Carmen Craven-Grew; vla, Angela Brzezinka; Pno.

Recording details:          as for second performance

Click here to hear excerpts             Click hear to see sketches

For details of hiring the sheet music, please contact David

The title loosely translates to Sounds of the Night, and the three parts all make use of the Vespers plainsong Te Lucis Ante Terminum (At the Close of Day).

Part one is centred on text from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which the sinister character Lady MacBeth gives an ominous depiction of the coming of twilight.  The eerie atmosphere is created with a minimalist texture, and the use of a wide palette of musical colours and effects.  Spacial fluctutations create a nervous, threatening mood.   All the performers employ unusual techniques to create woodland sounds, and the thickening of the musical textures portrays the thickening of light.  The closing line, So Prythee, go with me, invites the listener into the dark world of the night, where part two is set.

Part two uses text from the Orphic Hymn 3 to Nyx.  The music is set to a scene from an Orphic fragment, in which Nyx (Greek Goddess of the Night) occupies a cave, where she chants oracles.  Kronos (Greek God of Time) who is chained within and drunk on honey, dreams and prophesises.  Outside the cave, Nyx’s daughter Nemesis (Greek Goddess of Revenge) beats on drums, moving the entire universe in an ecstatic dance.

The music begins with Latin American dance rhythms of the guiro.  All instruments are thus used in a totally percussive manner.  The soprano’s first entry, singing into the piano body, creates the naturalistic effect of Nyx’s chants echoing around her cave.  More dance rhythms ensue, those of the clave and guiro, and an inverted habanera on muted bass strings.  The spiralling cadenzas in the piano and the viola denote Kronos’ intoxication and send us deep into his dream world.  However, the piano rhythms of Nemesis’ dancing outside creep into this drowsy dream-music and gradually dominate until his indulgent dreaming becomes a terrifying nightmare.  Chaos ensues and, at the moment where the fallboard slams, Kronos awakes with a start. Parts two and three are linked by the second verse of Te Lucis Ante Terminum. 

Part three has a pure and calm mood.  The vocal line is reduced to primitive-sounding vowel sounds. Oscillating textures in the piano suggest the cyclic nature of time and give a sense of infinity.  Meanwhile the viola plays a yearning melody, full of hope.  The work ends with bell-like sounds fading into the distance.

note by Angela Brzezinka