04: CG’s Octatonic Music

Initial Octatonic Sketch. In November 2006 I wrote a sketch as a submission to a film I didn’t get. They always seem to want these submissions “yesterday” so, with only an afternoon available, I wrote and recorded it on synths in three or four hours, along with a couple of other pieces. It was very much a “stream of consciousness” form of composing with no second goes. This demo worked its way up and down the octatonic scale in ever growing pyramids. By putting this thematic line into various augmented canons an eerie world was created.

I then became quite fascinated by the octatonic scale. I was attracted to its pseudo-tonality, that a tonal centre can be found by persistence, gravity and avoidance, rather than the usual hierarchy of notes in the major/minor system. But that this tonic can be subverted simply by persisting with other notes of the same pitch collection, no modulation being required. Then there is the “straight-jacket free dissonance” and the eerie, drug-like haze I mention below. It makes me think of walking on the inside of a ball, always moving forward but never getting out. Apparently the universe is like that. I began to think that this sketch would be the basic material of the hoped-for Horn Concerto.

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I composed You Dead Kings Rising (for choir and ensemble) between February and April 2007. It is a setting of a three part poem by Gwen Harwood that progresses from darkness to light.

The first part, for male voices, uses only the octatonic scale and includes a variant of the Initial Sketch – this time seventh chords in ever growing pyramids.
You Dead Kings Rising Part 1 (excerpt)

Then Part Two, for female voices, remains in the same scale but plays with the illusion of tonality, sitting on the major and minor triads that can be found in the scale.
You Dead Kings Rising Part 2 (excerpt)

Part Three, for all voices, breaks free of the scale’s restrictions into A major with chromatic bursts of light.
You Dead Kings Rising Part 3 (excerpt)

In a final ecstatic octatonic series of major and minor chords the piano states a theme, the second half of which, will eventually become an important motive in the first movement of Lightfall.
You Dead Kings Rising (Ending)

So, structurally the piece is about breaking free of the restrictions of an eight-note pitch set, with its ambiguous tonality, to a firmly grounded A major that allows all twelve pitches.

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My piece, Freefall (for large ensemble) was composed during September-October 2007 and all twenty-five minutes of it is written entirely with only the eight notes of the octatonic scale, without modulation or transposition. By reorganizing the notes it is possible to get all intervals from the major seventh, the minor seventh, major sixth, and so on, through to the minor second. This idea is stated by the piano in bar three and provides much of the material for the work. The Initial Sketch had shown me that once the ear was trained to expect only those eight notes that any interval or combination of the notes became acceptable at any time; a kind of free dissonance in a straight-jacket ruled. Freefall takes that liberating notion as its rule of engagement. Near the end (bars 480-495) the horn has a solo…with the concerto being very much on my mind, this was intended, not so much as a direct thematic quote, as a stylistic quote of the unwritten concerto.

Here is the full score: Freefall - Score
and five audio excerpts from the second performance, played by the Sydney Omega Ensemble:
Freefall (bars 1-77),

Freefall (bars 108-184),

Freefall (bars 240-302),

Freefall (bars 412-468),

Freefall (bars 478-523)

Sydney Omega Ensemble flee the stage after the second performance of Freefall

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Free Dance, I composed quickly in December 2007 (during the week of the Freefall premiere’s rehearsals) for the film, Mao’s Last Dancer. The film script suggested music with a West Side Story feel, something brash and percussive…

…but where the beat is uncertain. I knew the scene would be quite short but wrote something longer so that the filmmakers could have some flexibility during the film shoot.

Once again, the octatonic scale without modulation or transposition.
Here is part of the score: Free Dance - (score excerpt)
and audio: Free Dance (excerpt)

MLD Recording Free Dance L-R: CG, Alex Henery, Simon Tedeschi, Josephine Allen, Christo Curtis, Brian Nixon, Alison Eddington, Philip South, John Douglas

In 2005, I had arranged my Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra as a Quintet with two pianos and percussion and had recently been making a few minor adjustments for its first performance. I felt that a similar instrumentation would work well for this scene in Mao’s Last Dancer.

Of course, this ensemble began with Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion…

…and his influence can be heard in Free Dance, along with, it now occurs to me in hindsight, Keith Emerson’s music of the 1970s.

Believe it or not that is ELP’s rocked-up version of a piano piece from 1911 by Bartok, Allegro Barbaro. This music is also octatonic, but with modulation.

Here’s a fragment of very rare footage of Bartok, himself, performing the piece:

The complete piece can be heard here.

And, just for the fun of it, here’s another version of Allegro Barbaro:

And finally, this:

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In the film, Daybreakers, composed February – March 2008, the octatonic scale is associated with the vampires, so it is quite prevalent in the score. Based on a variant of the Initial Sketch it uses the scale in augmented canon creating a murky haze. This is first heard during the opening titles of the film and on Nightfall, the second track of the soundtrack album. It is permeates the score in many different guises including a mighty minute or so scored for four very loud horns in canon (Drought, on the album).

Daybreakers sessions, Horn section (1), L-R: Marnie Sebire (off camera), Geoff O'Reilly, Euan Harvey, Robert Johnson, CG

Daybreakers, Horns (2), L-R: Marnie Serbire, Geoff O'Reilly

In some respects Daybreakers is the Horn Concerto that never was and this became a creative problem for me nine months later.