Fergus Johnston Programme Notes

Programme Notes

Carn

Irish, an agglomeration, a heap or pile (as in cairn). This piece is the result of ongoing visits to the Wexford coast, most especially to Hook Head and Carne Beach. At the Hook, the tumultuous stratification of the sedimentary rocks creates the impression that they are either sliding down into or emerging up from the sea. The overlapping layers create powerful cross-rhythms, great masses are cut off from the mainland, and the overall impression is one of mesmerising upheaval happening on a vast time-scale.

On Carne beach, on the other hand, coastal erosion is taking place on a scale that can be measured in months, if not weeks. I recall one visit to the place, when we found a section of a field in the middle of the beach, cut off from the rest of the landscape, the rocks on the beach gradually becoming sandgrasped, held in suspension by and merging into the soil which terminated in a flat table of coarse grass, the whole heap rising up out of the beach in a defiant but hopeless gesture against the elements. These ideas are the main source of Carn. The piece is not meant to be programmatic, nor is it meant to be impressionistic. It is instead a personal resonance with the landscape. Carn is composed in layers, all of which use the same material, but in different ways, starting slowly (44 beats per minute) and speeding up (through 52, 63, & 76 to 104 beats per minute.) The layers overlap, piling up to the fastest and most active, then retreating to the opening chords which are their source, before the final thrust.

Carn was commissioned by the Project Arts Centre, and is dedicated to Iris and Gary Johnston, in whose Wexford home I was staying when the piece was conceived. I am most grateful to Sherin Goudarze-Tobin and Reamonn Keary for their patience and hard work, and to the Project Arts Centre and Fiach Mac Conghail for their support.

Méadú

Commissioned by the NCH for this concert and for these performers, this piece is similar to Morrigan in its structural processes. It also shows my inability to throw things away, as it uses in its second section a spiral which tumbles into a perpetuum mobile, a sequence which I wrote back in 1987 and into which I found the first section of the piece evolved quite naturally as I worked. Like in Morrigan, the opening material (a rising tone in the violin, a descending sequence in the piano) is constantly changing shape, being expanded both in pitch, melodically and intervalically, and in time and duration. The CD material is similarly treated, and uses processed samples of a violin and a found metal object, and some white noise which is “sieved” through some of the musical material played by the live players.

Morrigan

This piece was commissioned by and written for Eleanor Dawson and Jane Chapman in 2000. It originally used live electronics but thess proved singularly unreliable so this version uses manipulated sounds pre-recorded onto CD. The opening material changes shape a lot during the piece, hence the title. The Morrigan is one of the goddesses of war and death in Celtic mythology, sometimes referred to as An Badhbh Chatha, the Black Crow or Raven of Battle, a scavenger who lives on death. She’s a shapeshifter, sometimes appearing as an animal, sometimes as an alluring young woman, or an old hag by a river washing the mangled heads and limbs of those about to die in battle. I like the savagery of the idea when it’s juxtaposed with the normally three combination of baroque flute and harpsichord. The piece lasts about eight minutes.

Flute Concerto

I wrote the concerto for my brother Gareth Costello, who gave the first performance in June 1997 with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Alexander Annissimov. The piece was an RTÉ commission in 1996. I have revised the piece for Eleanor Dawson’s performance.

The Flute Concerto has a subtext in that its mood is derived from the character of Cassandra in Euripides’ play The Women of Troy. Cassandra can predict the future and prophesises the end of Troy, but no one believes her. The three movements of the concerto could be thought of as Cassandra rages, Cassandra weeps and Cassandra dances.
After the introduction, the first movement has the orchestra chattering away with repeated note figures which are silenced by the metal percussion. Here the entry of the solo flute is almost imperceptible as it takes over a note passed around the orchestral flutes. Thereafter the soloist pursues her own musical monologue, interrupted frequently by the rest of the increasingly strident orchestra until the final bars when, at the limits of their range, the wind finally are silenced by the crotales.

The second movement picks up from exactly the same pitches which closed the first movement, but where the first movement starts in the low register and ends stridently up high, the second does the reverse, using a slow downwardly unfolding sequence of chords which gradually descend from the frosty heights to the warmth of the lower strings register. The chattering repeated note material from the first movement becomes in the second an extended cantilena in which the soloist, playing piccolo flute, engages with the orchestra in a much more interactive way than in the first movement.

Just as the first and second movements were linked, again the second and third movements are linked but more subtly. The final call from the glockenspiel at the end of the second movement becomes the harmonic accompaniment for the slightly surprising Viennese waltz which emerges from the thumping rhythm of the last. I revised the ending of this short movement over Christmas 2003, bringing back the opening of the concerto in different orchestration, and including a climactic cadenza point for the soloist which is almost immediately suppressed by a massive orchestral outburst which brings the concerto to a close.

Samsara

The title is a Sanskrit word meaning literally ‘journeying’, but it has deeper meanings in Hinduism, Buddhism and Zen, where it refers to the cycle of birth, death and rebirth to which all beings are subject until they attain enlightenment and thus escape karma. This piece is a slowly evolving structure which starts from a single cell, a B flat invoked by a large gong, and grows into a complex double helix of musical RNA.

The piece is in seven sections built from cells of from 1 to 7 notes, each section longer than the previous, and having a “rising” phase where tension increases, and a “falling” phase where tension is released.
The form is constantly evolving, the sections interlocked so that at the climactic point of any one section the music from a previous section recurs to release energy that in its turn had previously been built up. So there is only a continuum of ebb and flow, building tension and releasing tension, breathing in and breathing out, the cycles at first almost imperceptible, but gradually lengthening and increasing in volume and density until the final B flat reverberates back into stillness. Commissioned by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in 1990.

The cycle of birth, death and rebirth to which all beings are subject until they attain enlightenment and thus escape karma. This piece is a slowly evolving structure which starts from a single atom and grows into a complex double helix of musical RNA during the course of which the material forms shapes which contain the seed of their own destruction and thus metamorphose into new sound objects. Commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland in 1990.

Binn an tSíorsolais (The Peak of Eternal Light)

There is a place, they say, at one of the poles of the Moon where the sun always shines. Because there is almost no tilt in the lunar axis, a mountain high enough and near enough to one of the lunar poles would always have its peak bathed in light from a Sun that remained forever on the horizon except when the Earth eclipsed the Sun in what would be a lunar eclipse on Earth, but would be a solar eclipse on the Moon
While I realise that I am highly unlikely to have the opportunity to witness such an event first hand, if I imagine myself at this apex during such an eclipse, then the music I hear in my head glistens and sparkles like the stars in the blackness above. If I imagine myself at this apex and I watch as the Sun gradually appears from behind the Earth in an extraordinary diamond ring effect, then this is the music I want to have to accompany the spectacle.

The piece grows out of and returns to a shimmering trill which moves around the orchestra and is present in some shape or form during many of the sections. As the movement of the music in the performance space is a composed element to enhance the physical experience I have split the orchestra into three groups: a string, wind and percussion ensemble center to left, harp at the centre with the timpani and brass behind, and another string, wind and percussion ensemble centre to right. The music lasts about 10 minutes.

Rashad's Words

Rashad’s Words is dedicated to Norman Rashad Parker, a Florida Death Row prisoner. He used to play the drums, but not since his confinement. He has been in prison now for about nineteen years and he has spent all of this time in his cell, which is 1.8m x 2.7m (the same size as the percussion array in the piece) except for when he showers (which is permitted every second day) and when he takes his two two-hour exercise periods per week. He is now waiting to present his final appeal to the Supreme Court against his execution (a warrant for his execution was issued in 1988, and he came within 21 days of being strapped into the electric chair before he was given leave to appeal).

I have taken some phrases from his letters to me, and used them to generate the short episodes from which this 14 minute piece is constructed. There are four tempi used, and neither the individual musical fragments nor the overall structure are meant to be reflective of any profound musical concept, but instead should be seen as a simple direct means of expression of the horrors and joys and fears and compassions of this man. It seems apt that he should speak through the instruments he used to play when he had his freedom.
This piece, which was commissioned by the 1999 Sonorities Festival, has been supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

The set up requires that the instruments be positioned so as to roughly fill a space of dimensions 1.8m by 2.7 m, or 6 ft. by 9 ft. (the size of a death-row cell in the Union Correctional Institution at Raiford, Florida).

For the first performance, Jonny Axelsson used:
3 suspended cymbals
6 tibetan gongs
tam-tam
8 wood-blocks of different sizes
2 logdrums
8 drums of different sizes
1 rattle
These were arranged with the tam-tam at the front of the cell, the drums stretching back from the audience on the left, the metal stretching back on the right hung from a frame, with the wood-blocks positioned on a table beneath the gongs. The largest bass drum was at the back.

Opus Lepidopterae

In the summer of 1995, butterflies were rampant, and I celebrate their effect on my spirits with these pieces, probably the most tuneful things I have ever written. Now, I adore butterflies, and have done ever since I was a child; when young I used chase and catch them in my hands, then let them go, leaving me to marvel at the stardust they left on my palms; now as an adult I marvel the concept of them not being a thing, but merely a stage in a process, as we are, all of us, stages in the same process; I am entranced by the fact that after they pupate, they stuff themselves with nutrients, then form a chrysalis and turn themselves into soup from which they somehow put themselves back together in the form of that which we call a butterfly. How do they do that?
Originally for recorder and guitar, the pieces now exist in several arrangements for various combinations of flute/recorder/oboe and piano/harpsichord. The titles of the pieces are Haikus, the first one by Lady Kana-Jo (17th Century), and the last two by Issa (18/19th century)
1. Quivering together-ears of barley, butterfly.
2. From burweed such a butterfly was born?
3. In this world, even butterflies must earn their keep.

The Wexford Suite for school orchestra

This piece for school orchestra is in two parts. The first part is a collection of different mood pieces linked by a returning echo-like motif. Each of the pieces represents a period in the history of Wexford: the misty past, the Vikings and/or Normans, Cromwell, 1798, and the present trailing off into the future. The second section is a set of variations on "The Wexford Carol". The piece was commissioned by Wexford County Council in 2004 and first performed in St Ibar's Church on May 7th 2005 by the County Wexford Youth Orchestra, with the composer conducting.

Éagaoineadh

“Éagaoineadh” was written in 1995 and is a lament for the deceased child of a dear friend. The child’s ciphered name, Michael, provides the harmonic material for the piece.

3 piano pieces for Raymond Deane

These three short piano pieces were written in 1994/5 in response to a commission from composer and pianist Raymond Deane. Nowadays I don’t usually write in so-called conventional ABA or ABAB forms, so these pieces are unusual in that respect. The first piece, “Dance”, and the last, “Bog Boogie”, are both highly percussive and at the same time harmonically extremely simple, each being based on a single chord (which in the case of the first piece is gradually almost “discovered” by the player during the exploratory slow opening). The central Nocturne is a more subtle and elaborately complex structure both harmonically and rhythmically, with slow polyrhythms wheeling around at different speeds in the reprise of the opening. The final “Bog Boogie” bears the same relationship to the boogie as the scherzo does to the minuet.

Journeys

Journeys is one of those strange things that defies categorisation. It is the result of a collaboration in 2001 with an organisation called Soilse (meaning light) on an Arts and Health project which involved working with participants who were recovering heroin addicts. The music is electronic, it uses texts, but these aren’t “settings” in the mormal sense. The participants words were recorded and manipulated in the computer, and combined with sounds created from filtering recordings of glass in all its diversity: different glass forms were broken, struck, stroked, or otherwise made to vibrate and the resulting recorded sounds were mixed into the final pieces which formed part of an installation. The installation also had a visual element involving the work the participants produced with the artist Carol McKeon, again based on glass. The pieces presesnted here need to be experienced in that context. They are, in a sense, neither music nor social commentary.

Journeys

Journeys: 16’33”
In 1999 I started work with the visual artist Carol McKeon on a Eastern Health Board/Arts Council “Health in the Arts” Project, working with participants from Soilse, an organisation for people trying to recover from drug addiction. The people I was working with were all taking part in Soilse’s SHAPE project. Our work together resulted in an electronic installation of visual and audio work in which glass was the main medium. I made a number of recordings: the participants’ poems read by themselves; their children playing in a nearby playground; their improvised music played on glass instruments; the sounds of breaking glass; the sound made by lengths of glass vibrating in free fall; perhaps most extreme, the sound made by urination into a sample jar. These sounds were all manipulated on the computer to produce the final pieces, all of which are short soundfiles which, in the installation space, are triggered by movement sensors.

The titles of the pieces are:
Innocence 3 0:48
Don’t talk to me (about wide-eyed addicts) 0:39
Symptoms 1:29
Choice Poem 1:02
No Reason 1:42
Resolution (why did no-one tell me?) 2:04
Shooting Gallery (the New Ghetto) 1:33
Journey 1 2:04
Journey 2 1:31
Lullaby 3:25

Journeys is one of those strange things that defies categorisation. The piece was described as neither music nor social commentary. This was meant to be a criticism. I took it as a compliment.

The Oul' Winda Rag

The 'Oul Winda Rag 5’
An oul’ winda rag is a cloth device used by Dubliners to clean the windows of their homes. The Guardian Dublin Piano Competition commissioned the piece as a test piece for semi-finalists in the 1997 competition, and I celebrate this in the title because it’s also an anagram of “The Guardian Owl”, the symbol of the company which sponsors the event. Their phone number (282820, or too whit too whit too whoo in their ad campaign) is ciphered to generate the harmonic and melodic material in the piece which occurs at several speeds, often overlapping, so the piece is a rag-time of sorts.

Signals

Signals is a suite for solo violin in seven movements. The titles of the first six pieces refer to paintings by Kandinsky: Obstinate, Extended, Untitled, Winter, Reciprocal Accord, Bright Picture. The seventh movement is a Finale which uses elements of the other six. The music was written in 1987/8for the choreography of Fiona Quilligan, and the piece was performed as a dance by Rubato Dance in 1988.

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