2 OBJECTS AT AN EXHIBITION INTRODUCTION TO OBJECTS AT AN EXHIBITION Every musical instrument is, in a sense, ‘Objects at an Exhibition’ may be heard Aurora Orchestra • Nicholas Collon conductor a machine. But, in science museums as a commentary on our technological they are machines of unusual interest civilisation and culture. It was important and potency for visitors, because music for the project that each of the selected 1 Thea Musgrave Power Play 6’35 is a key site for the interaction between composers would have the opportunity 2 Christopher Mayo Supermarine 12’08 science, technology and culture. to pick-out from the Museum’s hundreds 3 Claudia Molitor 2TwoLO 11’42 Music, if you like, provides a perfect of thousands of objects one that held a exemplifi cation of how technology and particular resonance for them. Most of 4 David Sawer Coachman Chronos 9’14 the arts have developed hand in hand these commissions started with an open- 5 Gerald Barry The One-Armed Pianist 6’49 over centuries. There are whole varieties ended bespoke tour for the composers 6 Barry Guy “Mr Babbage is Coming to Dinner!” 9’10 of music that could not exist without of the Museum’s spaces, when it was certain technological developments, an possible in a spatial dialogue to unite Total 55’43 observation that not only applies in the each composer with the object that more obvious case of genres dependent would become the particular subject of on modern electronics, but also with their composition. Aurora Orchestra older machines such as the tenor This project has been, from the start, an saxophone or the overstrung piano. Jane Mitchell fl ute Florence Cooke violin • sampler equal creative partnership between the Thomas Barber oboe • cor anglais Sarah-Jane Bradley viola In the ‘Objects at an Exhibition’ project, Science Museum, NMC Recordings and Tom Lessels clarinet • bass clarinet • sampler Nathaniel Boyd cello we have set out to represent that core Aurora Orchestra. The compositions by interaction between technological Gerald Barry, Barry Guy, Christopher Adam MacKenzie bassoon • contrabassoon David Lale cello capability and artistic possibility, but with Mayo, Claudia Molitor, Thea Musgrave Stephen Stirling horn • sampler Clare O’Connell cello an additional resonance. Each of the and David Sawer – with their diverse Simon Cox trumpet • cornet • fl ugelhorn Ben Griffi ths double bass pieces was commissioned as an artist’s approaches, techniques and styles Peter Moore trombone • sampler Ian Dearden live electronics response to a particular (non-musical) – offer new and interactive listening John Reid keyboard machine in the Science Museum’s experiences to Museum visitors, Aurora Scott Lumsdaine percussion collections or to the grandeur of our audiences and NMC listeners alike. Alexandra Wood violin Nicholas Collon conductor public galleries. The result is that, in total, Barry Guy’s extraordinary graphic score 2 3 (reproduced on the back page of this move and deepen engagement with NOTES FROM THE COMPOSERS booklet) is based on Charles Babbage’s our collections and spaces. For all of difference engine workings. Claudia’s us – Museum, NMC and Aurora – this ‘non-music’ is inspired by the BBC is a collaboration that has the potential Thea Musgrave faster moving 2LO transmitter and the idea that music to change how people think about both Power Play machines with ‘busy’ was originally prohibited on BBC radio. technology and contemporary music. for fl ute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, movement in more middle horn, trumpet, keyboard, violin, viola and cello range pitches. This leads to Gerald’s piece responds to a modest Dr Tim Boon , Head of Research & the third slow section of higher and extraordinary object: a prosthetic Public History, The Science Museum, The overwhelming sense of man-made arm specially made more than a century pitches where an anchoring London energy one feels upon entering the ago for a pianist who played, wearing it, cluster chord (built from notes of an Energy Hall prevents one from seeing at the Royal Albert Hall. Chris’s work is octatonic scale) tethers fl ights of fancy – and hearing – at fi rst glance the inspired by a slate statue of aeronautical This project presents six new works, by fl ute and violin – suggestive of the commissioned by NMC Recordings, exploring the differences between the various engineer R. J. Mitchell in our Flight fi ner things of delicacy and beauty that Science Museum’s world-renowned collection. ingenious machines. Further study Gallery, where signifi cant aircraft crowd The works were premiered in 2015 by Aurora can be made from these mechanized reveals each machine to have its own the ceiling. Refl ecting on a world where Orchestra in a unique walk-through concert at inventions. The fourth and fi nal section there’s an increasing emphasis on the Museum, in the presence of the object or genius, its own mechanisms and its own is a climactic coda of the summation of speed, David has chosen the mail coach space that inspired its composition. The three sounds. the three previous independent parts, partners also ran an education project with Aurora in the Making the Modern World gallery musicians, encouraging school children to explore I have chosen to focus the working together now to form the impact to ‘seek clarity in time standing still’. Thea curriculum science topics through composition. four different sections of composite energy housed in the Hall. has expressed great enthusiasm for nmcrec.co.uk/objects of my piece in the © 2015 Thea Musgrave the spatial volume and potential of the following way: starting Museum’s three-storey high Energy Hall with low pitches led with its C18th-C19th steam engines. Christopher Mayo by trumpet and horn, Supermarine She says “I am thinking generally of the fi rst section for cello, double bass and four samplers the wonders of discovery, with soloists illustrates the slow- ‘taking off’ with fl ights of fancy”. moving but powerful In the Flight Gallery at the Science For us at the Museum, music has the turning of a large Museum, dwarfed by the scale of the power to enhance deeply the variety wheel. This merges into many full-sized planes hanging from of what we can offer our visitors; the second section where the ceiling above and the vast wall of emotionally it has the potential to the oboe and woodwinds illustrate airplane engines, a life-sized statue of a 4 5 lone fi gure stares out of a display case. and in 1942 The First of the Few was the mythologizing aspects of the working – hence it has to be words The statue, made from over 400,000 released, a biographical fi lm starring Leslie Howard fi lm and the conspiracy rather than music as that would interfere pieces of Welsh slate, carefully stacked, Leslie Howard as R. J. Mitchell. The fi lm theories surrounding the attack on too much with compositional thoughts. depicts the British aeronautical engineer told the story of the Spitfi re’s BOAC Flight 777. The fi rst BBC radio transmitter called R. J. Mitchell. Mitchell, a prolifi c designer, development and Mitchell’s illness and © Christopher Mayo 2015 2LO, is an impressive object to look at. worked for Supermarine Aviation Works death and served to further mythologize But it also has a melancholic quality. for whom he designed the Sea Eagle, both the plane and its designer in the Here it sits, beautifully preserved in the Sea King, the Walrus, the Stranraer eyes of the public. Claudia Molitor its glass vitrine, completely silenced, and a series of racing aircraft including 2TwoLO Leslie Howard was killed less than a stripped of its main purpose of the Supermarine S.6B, winner of the for clarinet, horn, trombone, cello, year after the fi lm’s release when BOAC transmitting sound. It feels a little like Schneider Trophy in 1931 and one-time double bass and electronics Flight 777 from Lisbon to Bristol was looking at an exhibited Stradivari violin, holder of the world air speed record shot down by eight German Junkers Ju When I was approached to take part too precious to play, yet it is in its sound (The Supermarine S.6B is also 88 fi ghters. The attack on Flight 777 in this wonderful project the fi rst that the violin’s beauty lies. on display in the Science question was which object to base the prompted numerous conspiracy theories Museum’s Flight Gallery). composition around. This is not an easy surrounding Howard, most suggesting decision to make, particularly in a space Mitchell was most famous, that he was a spy on a secret mission stuffed with so many intriguing however, for designing the to liaise with Francisco Franco on objects that allow the imagination Supermarine Spitfi re, the behalf of Churchill. However, it was also to go wild! But when Tim Boon innovative and revolutionary suggested that, due to the fi lm, German mentioned that the fi rst BBC fi ghter aircraft which played agents had mistaken Howard for R. J. radio transmitter would soon be such a prominent role in the Mitchell himself and had ordered the displayed in the new Communication Battle of Britain. He did not live plane shot down to eliminate him. Hall the decision was made for me. to see the Spitfi re play its Supermarine is written for cello, double As a composer I spend a lot of key war-time role; dying of bass and four keyboards controlling time working in my studio whilst cancer in 1937, aged 42. software samplers. The samples used BBC Radio 4 chatters in the The Spitfi re achieved were created from audio rec ordings background.