Urizen was composed for the organ duo of Tom Bell and Richard Brasier. It was first performed in a series of recitals in various venues in 2016, including in Leicester Cathedral. The piece attempts to represent the immense power and originality of the drawings of William Blake. Urizen features in Blake’s
Prophetic Books of the 1790s as a representation of Reason, one of the elements which Blake imagines separating out from the other elements of the human mind.
The possibilities of four hands and four feet playing on one organ sets up challenges of co-ordination but also provides great textural and colouristic opportunities. Both are exploited in this diptych.
The two movements are set either side of a short, static sequence of only two, lengthy chords. These represent Urizen ‘in chains’ (illustration 20 of Blake’s
First Book of Urizen) and reappear in the second movement. The first movement is based on illustration 5, where Urizen is held fast by the coils of a serpent, giving the impression of turning constantly in a ‘fathomless void’ with ‘intense fires for his dwelling’. This is represented by the sense of constant motion achievable on the organ, which requires no breathing spaces, the perpetual motion enabled by the two pairs of hands. The second movement, following the middle chords, reflects on one of Blake’s most celebrated images ‘The Ancient of Days’, the frontispiece to
Europe, a Prophecy. It is prefaced by a linked quotation from
The First Book of Urizen where Urizen forms a ‘dividing rule’, mirroring ‘The Ancient of Days’. This movement is a celebration of power in Creation. The question of whether the image is benign lies at the heart of the movement’s struggle.
- ISMN: 9790570683871 (M570683871)