t i g h - n a n - u i s e a g a n

Instrumentation:             Cl, Tbn, Vn, Vc        

Duration:                       7’

Performance details:       22.08.2003, Adam House, Chambers St, Edinburgh. Adam Powell; cl, Christopher Verney; tbn, Anna Goodall; vn, David Lale; vc.

Recording details:           22.08.2003, Reid House, Nicolson Sq, Edinburgh. Adam Powell; cl, Christopher Verney; tbn, Anna Goodall; vn, David Lale; vc.

Click here to hear an excerpt             Click hear to see sketches

This piece was conceived, and largely composed on the banks of Loch Ness.  At the time I was staying in a house nearby called Tigh-nan-Uiseagan, meaning ‘house of the sky larks’ and this is where the title is drawn from.

The piece makes use of the Stravinskian process of stratification. It is spilt onto five strati evoking Loch Ness panorama.

1^st Stratum
This stratum represents the ‘highest’ level.  The string harmonics represents the cutting wind and its irregular pulses, while wind instruments portray the block sirus cloud formations.  Through the course of the piece, the Violin expands on the harmonic series on E, and the Cello plays around a D major seventh chord.  The ‘cloud formations’ become wider, intervalically, as the strata evolves.

2^nd Stratum
This stratum is rather more conceptual than the first, and represents the ‘landscape’.  The phenomena taken are the trees, cairns and the hills shapes.  The chords at the top of the 2^nd stratum (see Diagram 1) derive from the conifer tree shapes – the largest interval at the bottom, then decreasing towards the top.  The size of these ‘tree’ chords ‘grow’ through the course of the music.  The ‘solid’ fifths in the Cello come from the rock-hard cairns.  In the 3^rd and 4^th appearances of this stratum (letters H and Q), the ‘tree’ chords are set as melodic material, representing the horizon – as the line starts to fall away, another appears from ‘behind’ it.

3^rd Stratum
This stratum represents an audio level of ‘natural’ sounds.  The only fauna that could be heard on the banks were bird song and sheep noises.  In a rather programmatic fashion, the Clarinet the singing lark, the strings depict cheeping from other birds and the Trombone describes a bleating lamb.

4^th Stratum
This audio level represents sounds produced by mankind.  The wind instruments portray the shotguns of pheasant hunting, and the strings mimic the Doppler effect of distant cars and aeroplanes.

5^th Stratum
In riposte to the 1^st stratum, the 5^th represents the lowest level – namely the water of Loch Ness.  In this stratum I wanted to create the sense of something deep and ominous, something which is just always there.  Tonally, this is achieved with instruments in their lowest register, indeed, the Cello in tied to the lowest of the ensemble.  The wind instruments represent the slow moving water, which eventually returns to its original state, and the Violin depicts flickers of activity on the surface of the water.            

The formal design of the work, even the choice to use the stratification process, was determined by the way I found myself observing the Loch Ness surroundings.  In sitting upon the banks, my eyes and ears seemed to focus on a sound or sight, and then random switch to something else.