Brett Dean’s new work is sort of a mind-blowing affair: an evolution cantata, considered from the angle of this current temporary second in time and spanning 4.5 billion years in 50 minutes. Dean sees it as a love track to planet Earth and the life-force that has conditioned our very existence, but additionally a lament.
The start line for Dean and his librettist Matthew Jocelyn was Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, as an alternative choice to the biblical idea Haydn embraced in his oratorio The Creation, however paying homage to it with quotations each from Gottfried van Swieten’s German phrases and the E-book of Genesis. If the juxtaposition of evolutionist and creationist pondering already raises eyebrows, the additional uncommon factor is their use of the phrases adopted by soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause describing how sound has advanced over time. Accordingly, Geophony, the phonic presence devoid of organic parts; Biophony, the rising organic world and Androphony, denoting human-generated sounds, delineate the work’s three major sections, framed by a prelude and postlude.
Whereas lists of phrases solely geologists may decipher with out recourse to surtitles weren't simply intelligible, the onomatopoeic verve Jocelyn present in phrases to embody Krause’s theories – permitting Dean to search out comparable musical sounds – was simple. But it was Darwin’s measured and poetic tone that created the requisite sense of awe, sung by soloists Jennifer France and Patrick Terry with moments of utmost magnificence within the intertwining of their hovering traces. These two successfully stole the present, soprano France together with her impeccable diction and laser precision, and countertenor Terry in Jocelyn’s zany cabaret sequence, even when its connection to the remainder was not apparent.
Dean’s deep understanding of the orchestra got here by way of within the temporary, typically magical passages of instrumental interlude and, whereas the postlude gained gravitas from Sir John Tomlinson’s recorded voiceover, it additionally featured extraordinary chirruping sounds made by 24 specifically created whirlytubes. Twirled overhead by choristers, the sounds evoked nothing a lot as birdsong within the tallest branches of forests man is destroying.
In This Temporary Second was a Metropolis of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 2020 centenary fee and, on this long-awaited premiere carried out with care by Nicholas Collon, Covid’s half within the delay was sombrely referenced in Within the Wrestle for Existence, setting Darwin, because the 220-strong refrain – the CBSO Refrain and Hallé Choir brilliantly mixed – donned black masks.
It spoke volumes for Dean’s irrepressible dedication that he joined the CBSO’s viola part for The Ceremony of Spring with which his cantata was paired. Stravinsky would have loved the praise.
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