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The Unification of Light

by julian Broadhurst MSEP

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The Unification of Light - Symphony no. 2 - MSEP, Music for Strings Electronics and Percussion 27 - my 115th album. Four Vast movements at over five hours in length - Symphonic in intent.

The Unification of Light - Symphony no. 2 - Rh 443. There was only one Cosmic moment when all the light in Universe was in one place - at the nth of a second when the Particle soup of the of all that was - was able to release light - the Cosmic Dawn. At that very moment - all of the first light began. I’m not a physicist you can read about this cosmic dawn for yourselves from knowledgeable authors. I am just a musician maybe not even that - the merest dabbler - a flinger of paint - caught in the awe that there was such a moment and to beggar belief that at that very instant all light was unified at a beginning - the Unification Of Light - for once and once only - a cosmic Dawn.

In my sonic standpoint I felt I needed a Very. Very, long time to think about it. I invite you to join me, on my longest journey. I subtitled this work ‘Symphony no. 2’ as an echo, merely an echo, of the Symphonies I adore and revere - from a million hours passed in the adoration of music. At this point I stood before myself.


Music and I - A Journey Partway Told

Before coming to music, late in life as a career path, I had spent 20 Years as a Geometric Artist, but a latent obsession with music filtered through my choices of terminology et al, calling my works variations, even placing blank piano score under works, in a view that somehow they were translatable. I thought of my works in musical terms, a music I could never have imagined I'd actually have. The odd thing was that Art and music lived side by side, whilst I studied music - but after recovering from cancer, which took me away from music and art, for a couple of years, it was Art that came back firmly as an ambition. Music was relegated to a background obsession of books and CD's and a lingering need to 'perform' percussion on all manner of resonant objects and instruments.

When the recording of 'Performance' as 'fixed works' became a possibility, it overwhelmed a successful career in Visual Art [another story altogether]. So I get a series of eight or so years of furious recording of a personal canon of works and Collaborations. What I didn't realise until coming up to write this very article, was just how strong the Visual Art feedback loop still was - working through the music. As an Artist I pulled strongly to music, now as a Composer - I’m pulling towards Art !

One of the things that fascinated me as an Artist was Colour Field, in the works of people like Barnett Newman, who I adore, and Marc Rothko of course, and colour washing. Though I didn't do use these practices myself [it wasn't my field], but I adored it in others. I once watched film of a man [sadly I don't recall who], take a bucket of very expensive Deep blue oil paint, maybe a hundred tubes worth - then scrape it through a very long wooden template and smear this paint, a half inch deep across a wall sized canvass, to create a regular pattern of lines in the paint. I was mesmerised. And now I have done that that, in music !

My Symphony no. 2 I took a ‘String Orchestra’, a group of friends, like that beautifully expensive oil paint, and inscribed it across four vast movements, like four Vast Canvasses. Like Rothko - My Rothko Triptych for bell harmonics [Em - 37] - was a tribute to him in music but this - is using Colour field with music - altogether different - a symphonic statement of minute changes, where minutiae become mountains, my ultimate statement for 'Deep Listening' and at nearly five hours it is Quite a thing to ask of people - yet ask I will. And the title - ohhh delicious folly - trace the Ages back to the first point of light, when matter produced the first light, the first rays a glorious unification in light -as the chaos of darkness revealed space. Also, I just loved the phrase !


The Five Symphonies


- In the third album Group - The Golden Band -

The emotive pressure of that word ‘Symphony,’ no matter how you approach it, you feel somehow you have to reach further than you ever have. Hans Werner Henze was the model that gave me permission to try this, in his description of ‘A Symphony’ - as a ‘Broken Form’ - especially his no. 5 in a single movement. I borrow this sacred word with humility.

[] Album MSEP 14 - Symphony no.1 - for Strings, Percussion and Electronics - in one movement - Rh 242. My 60th album and perhaps my most ambitious conceptual work at the time. It's a Symphonic use of sound, of construction, of minutiae and grand gesture, of nuance and fixation. Based on that canonic fragment from Nono - it is a Nono Symphony and part of my Nono series [Please refer to the album page for Details].

- In The Fifth album Group - The Outer Blue Horizon -

[] Album MSEP 27 - ‘The Unification of Light - in Four Movements -Symphony no. 2 - Rh 443. This Sacred word - is there such a thing as an aggressive humility ?This time - one hundred works later - I subtitle a piece ‘Symphony no. 2’ - confirming the Last now as no. 1. It is a five hour String Landscape - thought Scape - In an Artist’s Abstraction then - scrolling back to the first moment of light. When light burst fourth from the primordial mass and there was light. This though is not about light it is about Music. A very gentle texture as a very grand gesture - almost aggressively so. Symphonic then in conception.

[] Album MSEP 28 - Sinfonia Vitae - Symphony of Life [symphony no. 3] - is dedicated to Julian, Lucas and Flori Araya Eacock. The beautiful children of my beautiful friends Emma and Jorge - who named Julian ‘The Lamb’ after me. An Ocean of gorgeous Strings - breaks on a shore - somewhere in musical Space. Technically and physically following on from no. 2 as Rh 444.

[] Album MSEP 29 - Symphony no. 4 - Rh 445 - a Symphony in Name [where nos. 2 & 3 were only subtitled as such]. A symphony in Substance - in imagination and in presentation. I humbly dedicate this “brooding miasma” [Pr. Ken Hesketh RCM in a reply to me] - to The Master - Hans Werner Henze. This is my offertory, in the String tone I adore - my meditation on music. Maybe as near to my ideal as I ever got. Here then is my soul. I emerge with a symphony in more than just name.

[] Album MSEP 31 - Symphony No. 5 - in one movement for Strings and Electronics - Rh 466 [Version 2]. String parts in a driving ostinato.


The Outer Blue Album Group - MSEP Indices

An early reorganization of my music research interests had defined my music into dedicated sets of Albums. This way things of a kin got heard together - as one type of album or another - by Genre - or Tranche as I styled them. In this Case Music for Strings Electronics and Percussion, MSEP a genre of Electro acustitc composition. By Convention MSEP.
Beginning as a percussionist my first 7 albums are for Drums of various kinds, Drum music or Dm, my first area of research interest or Tranche. I soon realised there was a second area of percussion, as a generality over a specialism - percussion on anything other than Drums, Metal Percussion music, or MPm. The third of five is the Phase music, realised by tape looping and timing, Phm. The fourth, a genre of Electro Acoustic composition, Music for Strings, Electronics and Percussion, or MSEP. The last genre is Electronic music, Em, taking the longest processing detour from an original acoustic source.

Album numbers 96 to the End form my Fifth ‘Group’ - a 5th time division across my Genres, my Outer Blue Group. The End being what it will be, but I have no plans, at the time of writing, in August 2020, to number any further albums, the given End being 142. This all builds on the foundational 'Blue Cherry Group' [where I had introduced my 5 areas of research interest] and the big 'New Horizon Group' - [where I explored to see where these five genres were leading me]. There then seemed to be a ‘band of gold’ across my discography. My Golden Band Group, that mark a particularly successful time for me. The albums that follow that, 76 to the End, are a ‘Blue Horizon’ - after the phrase ‘blue sky research’ - the ‘Blue Horizon Group.’ For convenience, I divided this Huge area into the Inner and the Outer Blue. So my Fourth Group is the Inner Blue Group. Then a Fifth and last Group builds upon that - my outer Blue Horizon - or Outer Blue Group.

There are 15 MSEP albums in the Outer Blue Group - MSEP 22 - 36.

[] Albums MSEP 22 and 23 are my 4 Sonatas and Studies for Solo Cello - which together with albums of Sonatas and Studies for Solo Drum - form a period I call ‘Sonatas and Studies.’ All recorded in the wonderful W Studio acoustic - hence also ‘The W Period.’

[] Album MSEP 24 Luigi is the last part of my huge Nono Series - it finally comes to ground at album 102. Just after album 101 - the Em Album Dodecette ended my 12 part Beriom Series - leaving one word for another. To borrow a phrase “perpetual change.” The time of my series’ is over. Now we get into a time of big Stand Alone works - four symphonies and an Opera. To go by the book though

[] Album MSEP 25 is a massive triple album - I would say a whole other world in itself. Making use of the Isabel Ensemble to produce these two, four movement, album long Consorts for Strings. A third disc is ‘Ring of Bright Consort’ - pushing the boundary between performance and production - between Electro acoustic [MSEP] and Electronic music [Em]. Past a need for series - ‘Big music’ stands alone.

[] Album MSEP 26 is the 63 minute outing for strings - Nabucco - om - a horizon to peruse for percussion and tone colour.

[] Album MSEP 27 ‘The (rather grandly titled) Unification of light.’ Experimental beyond the last fleck of land Symphony no. 2 is nearly five hours long. “A momentary lapse of reason” on my part ? No, we are at a Mark Rothko stage again. If anything was, these are my real Rothko tone Saturations - I reached him in music and there is nowhere left to go - I think it works though. ‘The ‘Unification of light’ - is subtitled Symphony no. 2 and that title begs an explanation. It was a grand gesture on my part - it was a meditation - the Pieces came before a title. The Title is mine but it comes from physics. Wind the evolution of the Universe back to the Big Bang - wind light back it its first moment. Such thoughts were in the air for me. It is not a description of the music though nor the music a description of the title. Rather it is a space, a stillness - a question to ask. I have a long relationship with and adoration of Mark Rothko and have often said I could hear his surfaces as music - hence my ‘Rothko Triptych.’ The Rothko Chapel - I think of as his greatest ‘Work.’ Surfaces to meditate on and I feel that abstraction. I borrow their phrase “A Stillness that moves” - with thought and caution - not in Art - as in my earlier life but ‘now in a time of music’ [me 2006]. Perhaps in error I added the subtitle symphony no. 2 but it stands as a part of my life now. That notion is part of the furniture. Symphony - history - agency and sound - I challenge myself to it.

[] Album MSEP 27 Sinphonia Vitae - Symphony no. 3. My ‘Symphony of Life’, is dedicated to Julian, Lucas and Flori Araya Eacock - the beautiful children of my beautiful friends Emma and Jorge. Julian - the Lamb was named after me. Part of it was played at my father’s funeral though in life he never heard it. Although it follows directly from no. 2 it is in complete contrast. Clearly in the wake of its forerunner - but opposite temperament. Here, waves of serenity wash over you. Cover Art and photo by the wonderful Jim Tetlow. A serene shot over northern Australia.

[] Album MSEP 28 Symphony no. 4 - Rh 445 is a symphony in name - in substance - in the imagination - in the presentation. I humbly dedicate this ‘brooding miasma’ to Hans Werner Henze. It follows directly from nos. 2 and 3 - on three consecutive albums [see chart below]. This then is my real sea of symphonies - in which one might drown - ideal for my label Drowningcircle music, DCM. This is my offertory in the String tone I adore - my meditation on music. Maybe as near to my ideal as I ever got. Here then is my soul.

[] Album MSEP 30 Codasolo - another exploratory vision of that most cherished notion of mine an ‘Elemental String Music.' Indeed the initial lines were recorded during the D'juil sessions with Cellist David Dhonau, in his studio, for our album 'Elemental String Music'. This is then a solo offspring from those D’juil sessions. The main body of the work was done back at my Isabel studio awhile later.

[] Album MSEP 31 Symphony no 5 - fiery, thunderous, pounding, unrelenting - disturbing - the Isabel Ensemble did a fine job ! To even dare to call this a Fifth Symphony, one has a lot to live up to ‘fifth symphony’ wise. This is it though - I have nothing more. There cannot be a sixth.

[] Album MSEP 32 Organum - for self - solo cello and percussive imperative. Elemental music for the elements prescribed. I sat in a Chair in a prepared room at Isabel, somewhat in the manner of an Electric chair - but free to air. The complexity is not electronic - it is alive in my thought and response. A black chair - a grey room - the Cello - myself and my fingers. The process is in the room. Ladies and Gentlemen for one time, for once and forever.

[] Album MSEP 33 They Make Music - an opera in two acts - for voices instruments and electronics. Two children a dressing up box and instruments. New music for an old collaboration - Flautist Maureen Anderson and I as Anderson Morning - ‘AM’ - our fourth production but with a difference. This time because so much of the Concept and realisation is mine I call it a work of mine - staring Maureen, flute and Voice as Christingle to my Vladimir. I also title the work MP 4 in acknowledgement of her. I draw the process into fantasy and formality as we made music. It is a play for disguised voices where you see them dress up and play in your minds eye. Enjoy the bouncing percussion and how the voices stretch into melody. What do they say - well let that be a secret between ourselves.

[] Album MSEP 34 A little less than Kind - a second suite for Cello. Like the first suite - ‘Never Not Actually Arriving’ - it is comprised of separate movements called intonations - four this time to eight in the First Suite. The third suite however is a set of independently numbered works. A point perhaps to note.

[] Album MSEP 35 Gregorious A & B - Music for Strings Electronics and Percussion, MSEP 35 - my 142nd album. A 21st centaury take on Gregorian Chant - the A and B studio edits. Ably performed by the Isabel Voices. This is the once and forever recording of it.

[] Album MSEP 36 Entangled A B & C. In effect my 3rd suite for cello - suite in a very loose sense in that they form a collection - an Opus number if you like but they have the independence of three Rh numbers - three Acknowledged works. With this set I close my MSEP Genre or Tranche. It has served its purpose and got me where I wanted to be.


Outer Blue Group - MSEP []

DCM 096 Em 38 - - - Blue Dark Marine

[] DCM 097 MSEP 22 - Sn for Solo Vc 1 & 2 []

DCM 098 Dm 15 - - - Sn for Solo Dm no. 9

[] DCM 099 MSEP 23 - Sn & St for Solo Vc []

DCM 100 Dm 16 - - - W Dances 8 -14
DCM 101 Em 39 - --- Dodecette

[] DCM 102 MSEP 24 - Luigi []

DCM 103 Dm 17 - - - Dm Sn No.10
DCM 104 MPm 12 - - Hamermusic

[] DCM 105 MSEP 25 - Consort m. for Strings []

DCM 106 MPm 13 - - 45’23 - Mp solo in 11 pts
DCM 107 Dm 18 - - - Zen Yen Zen - in 6 pi
DCM 108 Dm 19 - - - Metronomics 1 - 3

[] DCM 109 MSEP 26 - Nabucco - Om []

DCM 110 EM 40 - - - Profusion
DCM 111 Em 41 - - - Cant for P C
DCM 112 Phm 12 - - Past for wind gr.
DCM 113 Arkiv - - - - Arkiv
DCM 114 Em 42 - - - Funeral Music

[] DCM 115 MSEP 27 - TUOE [Sym n. 2] []
[] DCM 116 MSEP 28 - Sin Vit Sym n. 3] []
[] DCM 117 MSEP 29 - Symphony no. 4 []

DCM 118 DM 20 - - - - Table music
DCM 119 Dm 21 -- -- Konnyek

[] DCM 120 MSEP 30 - Codasolo []

DCM 121 Dm 22 - - - 5th Inv for Dj
DCM 122 Dm 23 - - - Drum Mantra

[] DCM 123 MSEP 31 - Symphony no. 5 []

DCM 124 Dm 24 - - - 6th Inv for Dj
DCM 125 MPm 14 -- Footfall A & B Edit
DCM 126 MPm 15 -- Inv for Steel Casing
DCM 127 MPm 16 - Imp in 4 and 3 Pts
DCM 128 MPm 17 -- Six Sns. for Metal P.
DCM 129 MPm 18 -- Inv for Industrial Unit
DCM 130 MPm 19 - Now is N. t. T. f Dan
DCM 131 MPm 20 -- Parellelia

[] DCM 132 MSEP 32 - Organum []

DCM 133 MPm 12 -- Perfor in Plastic
DCM 134 Em 43 - - - Geut - B Version
DCM 135 Em 44 - Vib. Blue Light - B V
DCM 136 Dm 25 - Sn for S. Dm 11 &12

[] DCM 137 MSEP 33 - They Make Music []

DCM 138 Dm 26 - Double Up + Per PP
DCM Ark Dm Arkiv - Sometime Live
DCM 139 Dm 27 - In an English Pa Ch.

DCM 140 MPm 22 - - Quarlium

[] DCM 141 MSEP 34 -- A Little Less than K. []
[] DCM 142 MSEP 35 - Gregorious A & B []
[] DCM 143 MSEP 36 - Entangled A.B & C []


The DCM album numbers list volumes in a [for the most part]
chronological edition - the ‘DCM Broadhurst Edition’ - Prepared for the British Library in 2021. The volumes or albums themselves were actually released as and when it was possible. The Edition though, was planed from the start to stand on the 'foundation Stone' of the Blue Cherry group.

The Rh catalogue, numbers my individual works in order of Completion.

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released August 5, 2014

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julian Broadhurst MSEP Derby, UK

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