05: What’s in a Name?

If you have read the previous post you might have noticed the similarity in the titles of these octatonic pieces:
(You Dead Kings Rising)
Free Dance
Freefall
Nightfall
Lightfall

Freefall was so named because I imagined waking up suddenly to find myself falling…forever. It moves gradually from bright, shrieking panic to muted, numb resignation.

Hubble photo: A glimpse of infinity...

In the film, Mao’s Last Dancer, there is a scene where the script calls for the dancers to be very stiff in their movements and for the choreographer to put on a jazzy piece of music to free them up.
Naturally I called this piece, Free Dance. Being very busy at the time and always moving on to the next job it actually took me a few days to realise the similarity in name with Freefall.

Mao's Last Dancer: Bruce Beresford with Chi Cao and Camilla Vergotis

It was around this time that I though of calling the future horn concerto, Lightfall. This was a conscious decision, making obvious the connections between these pieces; craft-wise there is the octatonic scale but also there is the progression between dark and light, life and the unknown. I’ll write more about the concept of Lightfall in the next few blogs.

Comet McNaught 18 Jan 2007 Sydney

As I post this, the film, Daybreakers, is yet to be released and still under wraps, so I am limited in what I can tell you about it. It is common knowledge that this is a vampire movie and of course vampires are active at night and must stay out of the sun. Through the opening titles there is a sunset and I called this cue, logically enough, Nightfall. Once again it only occurred to me at a later date that the title was related to my other octatonic works. In this case the music progresses from light to dark, albeit from a vampire’s point of view, which means from danger to safety. The release date is January 2010, worldwide.

Daybreakers: Ethan Hawke

You Dead Kings Rising, being my first octatonic work, was written before these names occurred to me but it is interesting that the title itself goes from “dead” to “rising”. In fact it is my own title taken from a line in the poem, Gwen Harwood’s original title being Can These Bones Live?.

Ezekiel - Valley of Bones

Painting by Dalana Castrell (Emilia Cleopas)