What Wild Ecstasy
Instrumentation: fl(=picc).ob(=ca).cl.bc.bsn(=cbsn)-hn.tpt.trbn-perc-pft-harp-strings(2.1.1.1.)
Ballet, Rambert Dance Company.
PROGRAMME NOTE
When I was approached to write a new score to sit alongside Debussy’s masterpiece Prélude áL’après Midi D’un Faune, it soon became clear that it would not be a partner piece, nor a modern day version, but rather a reaction to all the work’s incarnations: Malarme’s poem, Debussy’s music and Nijinsky’s choreography.
If the Fauns of Mallarme and Debussy’s creation were hazy and elusive in mood, sensual and soporific in character our faun would be direct, feral, sexually aggressive and Dionysian in sheer exuberance. I drew from the Pan Myth, John Keats’ 1819 poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn (from which the title comes) and the numerous artistic images inspired by the lascivious shenanigans of mythological fauns.
The work is structured in three core sections consisting of a series of musical outbursts that fly by one after the other. Material from previous sections bleed into the next, driving relentlessly and sometimes manically forward. Though there are moments of stillness they are soon superseded by brassy growls and rhythmic dances.
