The initial impetus for this piece was a fascination with landscape painting, in particular the surreal landscapes of Paul Nash and the visceral seascapes of the American abstract painter Jon Schueler. In the end, though, whilst the paintings of Nash and Schueler hover in the background, the piece does not seek to portray specific landscapes, either real or imagined. Instead, the landscapes here are abstract musical ones, with the idea of landscape a metaphor, not just for a sense of place, but also for a sense of potential and possibility; a place to be and a place from which to look beyond.
The structure of the piece is based around four main musical landscapes, with descriptive indications suggesting something of the character of each of these main sections: sustained, volatile, nocturnal, fleeting. Each landscape features the whole ensemble, while the paths, which link one landscape to the next, feature either a solo instrument or duet.
The piece is framed at beginning and end by short musical signals, or signs, connected to each other by shared material. Indeed, the material introduced in the first few bars - a three-note cell on the notes D, E and F - is the germ from which everything grows. The circularity of the piece, with the closing signal a modified version of the opening, calls to mind two extracts from
Little Gidding, by T.S.Eliot:
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning
-
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
https://soundcloud.com/john-cooney-uk/signs-paths-landscapes
