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Twenty-Seven Heavens
Conductor's score and parts on hire
978-0-19-339084-3
02 August 2012
Price: Available on request
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for full orchestra
Twenty-Seven Heavens is a concerto for orchestra commissioned as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, and scored for around 120 players. The title comes from Blake's Jerusalem, in which the poet parallels aspects of his mythological world with various districts of London, including areas such as Hackney, Bow and Stratford - now part of the Olympics site, and close to the composer's home. The twenty-seven heavens are layers of obscurity that the individual must penetrate to see the vision of Eternity - an idea which has resonance for both the artist and the athlete. It can also be seen to refer to the 27 nationalities represented by the EUYO's musicians. Forces or
CategoryFull orchestraDuration19.5 minutes minutesDifficultyModerately difficult to DifficultOrchestration3 fl (all+picc), 3 ob (III+ca), 3 cl (II+bcl; III+Ebcl), 3 bn (III+cbn), 4 hn, 3 tpt, 3 tbn, tba, 5 perc, str
Percussion: xylo, vib, almglocken, 2 ant cym (crotales), clash cym, 2 anvils, 3 cuicas (2 large, 1 small), pistol, flexatone, BD, tam, large sus cym, SD, 2 high Chinese opera gongs (with upward glissando), wdblk, 2 temple blk, timp,
tri, 2 TD, 1 bowProgramme NotesThe title is taken from William Blake's epic poem Jerusalem, Emanation of the Giant Albion. For Blake, the twenty-seven heavens were layers of obscurity that the individual must penetrate to see the vision of Eternity and as a whole, the poem charts Albion's struggle to awaken from a sleep of spiritual death. Despite its welter of biblical and mythological allusions, Jerusalem is very much rooted in London and it is remarkable not only for its consistently exalted tone, but also as an expression of Blake's compassion and anger about the poverty he saw around him in early nineteenth-century London.
Having myself been born in Whitechapel and now living in
Leyton (both in East London), I feel a strong connection with the area. I was struck by how Blake's mythological map incorporates - and exalts (without the excuse of an Olympic Games!) - districts including Hackney, Bow, Poplar and Stratford as these areas of modern London are rarely celebrated today.
Twenty-Seven Heavens is structured around two repeating canons, the first of which appears at the opening as a round played by pairs of solo violins. Out of this grows sustained material in the woodwind and brass (the image in mind was of light which gradually descends from the high treble in waves, eventually grounding the music). This is followed by a series of episodes marked by two anvils which play from opposite ends of the orchestra (echoing Blake's character Los, who is
depicted labouring as a blacksmith at his furnace, bedevilled by his spectre - his evil self - who he struggles to subdue). The music becomes stuck in a repetitive pattern before its progress is arrested by a traumatic gesture, as if the canvas on which the action is painted were punctured. The piece ends and starts again.
It re-emerges in a quite different place. The music gradually rises from the low bass in a long ritualistic section, growing in intensity until a chorale appears, played by six solo cellos. After the music gathers on a unison A, the second canon is heard (not a round this time: instead the same music is heard simultaneously at three different speeds) and the opening of the piece returns.
Richard Causton
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Richard Causton (b.1971) Richard Causton was born in London and studied at the University of York, the Royal College of Music and the Scuola Civica in Milan. He has worked with world renowned performers such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, London Sinfonietta, and the Nash Ensemble. He has been the recipient of several awards, including First Prize in the International 'Nuove Sincronie competition, the Mendelssohn Scholarship and a 2004 British Composer Award in the Best Instrumental Work category for Seven States of Rain. He was founder of the Royal College of Music Gamelan Programme and held the
Fellow Commonership in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge.Richard Causton's website
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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