The Otherworld's Book of Motets is a series of fifteen Motets which are composed for the Drumavox vocal quartet. Here is my blog about the creative process and I look forward to updating you about this in the future!
Otherworld's Book of Motets Prologue
The Otherworld's Book of Motets, features a mixed Sardinian choir from the Zappanation Rock Opera that explores the possibilities of expanding the natural acoustic sound world afforded by the combination of only human voice and percussion. Though voice and percussion have a long history in human musical development, the concept of a modern music ensemble using only four voices and percussion has been rarely explored. Drumavox fuses discoveries from jazz-rock to modern classical composition which features soprano Alice Madeddu, mezzo-soprano Eva Pagella, tenor Matteo Siddi, and bass Manuel Cossu.
Each chapter in the book follow the tragic death of four legends, King Ludwig II, Casey Jones, Robert Johnson, and José Rosario Oviedo through their own circle of life which is widely accepted by the Druids as a continuation of life originating from the Otherworld. Druids have a great understanding of the afterlife and have pronounced that men's souls and the universe are indestructible through fire or water. One of their dogmas is souls are eternal and there is another life in the infernal regions which is not sad or dreary, but a new and valuable world of existence. The Celtic Otherworld is elusive and is often reach by entering ancient burial mounds or caves, or by going underwater or across the western sea. The Otherworld exists alongside our own located beyond the edge of the earth and intrudes into our natural world by magic mist, sudden changes in the weather, or the presence of unusual animals.
The fifteen Motets explore ways Celtic mythology and Druid practices can be presented within a 21st-century experimental work. The prehistory of Ireland is several times longer than the actual known history and it is without written records where the earliest archaeological remains date back to 7,000 BC. Druid teachings were orally taught from generation to generation until eventually Christianity replaced most of these earlier beliefs. Today a contemporary Druids can only speculate in their own regard on matters of healing, magic, and ceremony.
Druid is a compound word derived with the meaning of 'strong' and 'knowledge' and were known as prophets. Most scholars have studied them under the category of shamanism as a kind of magician which has a mysterious kind of knowledge known as fiss or imbas. Druids and their practices act as intermediaries between themselves and their mental powers are chosen by some extraordinary abilities. Divinations, charms, incantations, and sacrifice rituals allow them to mediate between this our world and the Otherworld. Druids were able practitioners of psychiatry and had much knowledge of the stars and their motion of the size of the earth often making their pronouncements through riddles and rituals. They were the most influential members of society and even the King had to follow their wisdom and dare not resolve upon nor execute any plan without their approval. Otherworld's Book of Motets is the Circle of Life of four legends. So where does our soul go when we die?
Circle of Life Part I: King Ludwig II
Queen of Kings
Banshee Dance
Drop in a Cascade
Magic Mist
Circle of Life Part II: Casey Jones
Skippin’ Tracks
Story of Jones
Let's Walk Below
Rite of Samhain
We’re Younger Now
Circle of Life Part III: Robert Johnson
Crossroads
Mystical Healing
The Accabadora
Circle of Life Part IV: 'Malanga' José Rosario Oviedo
The Aqua Diva
Secret Valley
Moonwalk
Creation of the text and stories
To develop the text I collaborated with Guenter Janovsky a colleague who co-authored some of the lyrics on the 2019 album the Tan Man's Hat. His background as a German musician, songwriter rooted from the 1970's Krautrock, and Psychedelic rock generation allowed me to bring a different perspective to creating the text for the four folk legends. I collected Druid and the Irish mythology creating themes for each Motet that I want to explore in the text. I embrace the process of allowing stories to travel from place to place and person to person, being conscious that folk music is the peoples' music and is developed through a communal process.
Drop in a cascade lyrics by Guenter Janovsky
We come and go we freeze and burn
We read and write, we never learn
A sack of words can't fix a prob
A sack of seeds ain't the crop
Just waisting time by thinking how
Instead of changing everything right now
I fall asleep while I should fly
I could at least give it a try
Dreambaker, Heartshaker, rainwalker, son & father, cloudsailor, soultaylor
A drop in a cascade
I am fromPlanet earth, here since my birth
Some times Eden sometimes hell
WE live with Monsters I can tell
Sometimes I am blind and cannot see
The love and the Beauty surrounding me
In deep dark forest I hide away
Walking no path so I can't loose the way.
Dreambaker....
Drop in a cascade......
Since the Renaissance, the motet has been one of the most diverse polyphonic forms. Mystical Healing is the motet when Robert Johnson had reached the Otherworld. The text from Mystical Healing is based on Dian Cécht, the Celtic god of healing for the Tuatha De Danann and son of the Dagda. Much attention is given to the magical powers of leeches and the mythical patron of leechcraft, Dian Cecht is an early Irish charm for healing. Dían means swift' and Cécht means glossed as 'power', hence the literal meaning may be literally "swift power". Dian Cécht ministered to the injured by soaking them in "Slainge's Well" or rather the "well of healing" Dian Cécht, when questioned on his ability, boasted to be able to mend anyone but those who have been decapitated (or whose brain or spinal cord have been severely damaged) this he presumably accomplished using the Tipra Sláíne When this was done, Dian Cecht opened the infant's heart, and found within it three serpents, capable, when they grew to full size, of depopulating Ireland. He lost no time in destroying these serpents burning them into ashes to avoid its evil.
Word painting is an important choral technique used to evoke the narrative where the music reflects the meaning of the text. Composers have been practicing the word painting as far back as with the Gregorian chant. This technique is used at m.168 on Queen of Kings to create a state of timelessness, following the narrative when King Ludwig is about to enter the Otherworld. The various polyrhythms symbolize the use of several clocks declaring a state in which time has stopped. The Druids believed that upon the expiry of a family member the curtains were drawn in the house, the mirror was covered, the clock was stopped and the cat and dog were put out. The nature of the actions has originated in a belief that the soul could leave the body and become incorporated in something else. The idea persists that the dead live on continuously in a kind of ghostly community side by side with our own, and that they may assemble in groups to return to their houses at the feast of the dead.
Compositional process
Certain aspects of my work Queen of Kings Part 2 (Otherworlds Book of Motets) are based on the use of divisive rhythm which is directly influenced by Henry Cowell's New Musical Resources and the rhymicon.
The pitch context of Queen of Kings does not reflect any pitch relationship if you were to play these tempo scales on a rhythmicon. The dyads, tritones and tetrachords derived from a 12 tone row from Alban Berg's Lulu which will be discussed further in my next blog, Knott Tones a series of comprovisations composed for drum kit and the Ligeti Quartet. Thanks for reading along!