Macmillan:veni, Veni Emmanuel/tryst

Description

James MacMillan (b.1959) Veni, Veni, Emmanuel;Tryst (1989)Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, a concerto for percussion and orchestra is in onecontinuous movement and lasts about 25 minutes. Dedicated to my parents, it isbased on the Advent plainsong of the same name and was started on the 1stSunday of Advent 1991 land completed on Easter Sunday 1992. These twoliturgical dates are important as will be explained later. The piece can bediscussed in two ways. On one level it is a purely abstract work in which all themusical material is drawn from the fifteenth-century French Advent plainchant.On another level it is a musical exploration of the theology behind the Adventmessage.Soloist and orchestra converse throughout as two equal partners and awide range of percussion instruments is used, covering tuned, untuned, skin,metal and wood sounds. Much of the music is fast and, although seamless, can bedivided into a five-sectioned arch. It begins with a bold, fanfare-like'overture' in which the soloist presents all the instrument-types usedthroughout. When the soloist moves to gongs and unpitched metal and wood themusic melts into the main meat of the first section - music of a more brittle,knottier quality, propelled forward by various pulse rates evoking an ever-changingheartbeat.Advancing to drums and carried through a metrical modulation, the musicis thrown forward into the second section characterized by fast 'chugging'quavers, irregular rhythmic shifts and the 'hocketting' of chords between oneside of the orchestra and the other. Eventually the music winds down to a slowcentral section which pits cadenza-like expressivity on the marimba against afloating tranquillity in the orchestra which hardly ever rises above ppp. Overand over again the orchestra repeats the four chords which accompany the words Gaude,Gaude from the plainsong's refrain. They are layered in differentinstrumental combinations and in different speeds evoking a huge distantcongregation murmuring a calm prayer in many voices.A huge pedal crescendo on E flat provides a transition to sectionfour which reintroduces material from the 'hocket' section under a virtuosovibraphone solo. Gradually one becomes aware of the original tune floatingslowly behind all the surface activity. The climax of the work presents theplainsong as the human presence of Christ. Advent texts proclaim the promisedday of liberation from fear, anguish and oppression, and this work is anattempt to mirror this in music, finding its initial inspiration in thefollowing from Luke 21: \There will be signs in the sun and moon, and stars; onearth nations in agony, bewildered by the clamour of the ocean and its waves;men dying of fear as they await what menace, the world, for the powers ofheaven will be shaken. And they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud withpower and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand erect, holdyour heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.At the very end of the piece the music