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2CD SET SHARED GROUND 5 5. Flash [2.43] music by ALEC ROTH words (Shared Ground) by VIKRAM SETH 6 6. This [4.46] Ponticelli CD1 7 1. Flat Bridge [3.35] Earthrise 8 2. Bridge Of Sighs [2.04] 1 Part I: Man’s Drive To Explore And Exploit [7.36] 9 3. Arched Bridge [5.24] 2 Part II: Contemplation Of The Earth Seen From Space [5.47] 0 4. Bridge Of Sleepers [3.41] 3 Part III: A Plea For True Wisdom And Understanding [11.28] q 5. Rustic Bridge [7.30] Hymn To Gaia w The Flower [3.13] 4 Hymn To Gaia I (Homeric Text) [7.28] 5 Hymn To Gaia II (Orphic Text) [6.08] CD2 Total Timings [49.00] 6 Sol Justitiae [4.00] Total Timings [91.30] CD1 Total Timings [42.30] To hear the interlocking version of Shared Ground and Ponticelli, programme the tracks in the following sequence: 1 - 7 - 2 - 8 - 3 - 9 - 4 - 0 - 5 - q - 6 CD2 Shared Ground 1 1. Lost [3.50] 2 2. Oak [4.32] EX CATHEDRA 3 3. And [3.56] Jeffrey Skidmore conductor 4 4. Host [3.44] Philippe Honoré violin www.signumrecords.com Introduction Ex Cathedra’s relationship with Alec Roth must The relationship is sure to continue with many don’t realize what they have.” (James Lovell, surely have been made in heaven. Not only has more performances and recordings. Apollo 8); ‘I dodged into a record shop to escape the rain. Alec absorbed the enormous scope and vision of “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, Over the speakers came intriguingly beautiful our work, writing fluently and with apparent ease Jeffrey Skidmore, July 2011 pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my music. I just had to know what it was, and for our chamber choir, Consort, XL Anniversary thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted came away with the New World Symphonies CD. Choir, and Academy of Vocal Music, as represented out the planet Earth.” (Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11). Sometime later, considering which choir to use on this recording, but he also alludes with great EARTHRISE for a commission, I remembered Ex Cathedra. awareness to many of our musical influences – for unaccompanied choir in 40 parts ‘Reading these and other descriptions brought But were they as good live as on disc? I heard Poulenc, Tallis, Latin America, and Bach. There is to mind the prophet Isaiah’s evocation of a them in Durham Cathedral, slipping in to observe also the undeniable strain of Englishness which Alec Roth writes… ‘Being a great admirer of God’s-eye view of the Earth. I have used these the rehearsal. The concert was wonderful, runs through his music and our performance style, Ex Cathedra, it was both a joy and an honour verses in the text for Earthrise, along with but the rehearsal was the deciding factor. Here regardless of our declared eclectic influences. when Jeffrey Skidmore asked me to compose a other suitably visionary selections from the Old was a group whose approach to music-making new work for their 40th year. Casting around Testament. The words have a grandness and was so inspiring that I wanted to be part of it.’ Ex Cathedra has performed Alec’s music in over for a subject, I noticed that 2009 was also the solemnity which seem appropriate to the subject. 30 concerts since 2007. We have commissioned 40th anniversary of the Moon landings, and of Alec Roth wrote this about our performance in two works, given premieres of four pieces, and the famous picture of the Earth rising above ‘If that great prophet of our own day, James November 2005. In July of the following year I have another major commission planned for 2012. the surface of the Moon. The Apollo 8 crew who Lovelock is to be believed, man’s hubristic similarly had sneaked into a rehearsal in Lichfield Alec Roth’s music is relatively simple, but strong, brought back the Earthrise picture and later claim to dominion over the Earth has led us to Cathedral of his 2006 commission Songs in Time sturdy and passionate, written from the heart, astronauts were awed and profoundly moved by the brink of environmental catastrophe. He of War and had been impressed by the beauty of and the choir loves it! It is of consistently high the vision of their home planet: insists (The Revenge of Gaia) that if we are to what I heard, his extraordinary awareness of subtle quality with moments of absolute genius. Its come to a true appreciation of the damage we colours, textures, patterns, and delicate sonorities. deceptive simplicity demands our full attention “It was the most beautiful, heart-catching are doing, then appealing to reason is not And by his constant attention to detail, even at the and is rewarded by close study. We also share sight of my life, one that sent a torrent of enough. We must develop an emotional connection third performance! We performed his Lullaby at an interest in languages, whether biblical, Latin, nostalgia, of sheer homesickness surging to the Earth by harnessing the power of metaphor ‘Candlelight’ in 2006 and gave our first premiere, English, contemporary, or from the Homeric through me ... raging nationalistic interests, and myth, ancient wisdom and sacred texts, for of Shared Ground, in Salisbury in 2007. It was a or Orphic traditions. Along with Quechua, famines, wars, pestilence don’t show from “they serve to ignite an intuitive understanding whirlwind affair! Nahuatl, Church Slavonic, French and Latin, that distance.” (Frank Borman, Apollo 8); of God and creation that cannot be falsified by we can now add Ancient Greek to our list of “It was the most beautiful thing there was rational argument.” In Homage to Gaia, as linguistic adventures! to see in all the heavens. People down here throughout his writings, Lovelock pays tribute - 4 - - 5 - to the importance of the Earthrise image: “Can HYMN TO GAIA ‘For the ancient Greeks, the Earth goddess ‘My thanks are due to Professor Paul Cartledge there have been any more inspiring vision this for children’s choir, mixed choir and bass drum Gaia was the origin of all. Her story has for his help with sources and general guidance century than that of the Earth from space? We parallels with the creation myths of other and encouragement; to Helen Roche for her saw for the first time what a gem of a planet Alec Roth writes… cultures, but centres on the role of the mother advice on the transliteration of the Greek; and we live on. The astronauts who saw the whole rather than the father. Creator, nourisher, to Professor James Diggle for providing a literal earth from Apollo 8 gave us an icon.” “Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from destroyer, she is the beginning and end of all translation of the texts and for allowing me the outside, is available, a new idea as living things. Over the centuries her influence to record his inspirational declamation of them. ‘Earthrise is a meditation on this icon and falls powerful as any in history will be let loose.” was eclipsed as the patriarchal gods gained Any deficiencies in the English versions are into three sections: (Sir Fred Hoyle, 1948) sway, but now we are learning again to pay entirely my own; they are singing translations Part I – Man’s drive to explore and exploit heed to her old wisdom through the scientific and in making them I have been influenced by Part II – Contemplation of the Earth seen ‘The radical new idea that sees our planet as a theory and environmental movement which bear the requirements of the music.’ from space single living organism was already forming in her name. Part III – A plea for true wisdom and James Lovelock’s mind in the 1960s when he Hymn to Gaia was commissioned by Ex Cathedra understanding was working for NASA. It wasn’t until 1969, ‘The first hymn is a setting of the Homeric Hymn thanks to the generous support of David Heathfield however, that it acquired its name – at the to Gaia. The ancient Greek text is sung by the and Alan Ingham. ‘The text is set in the Latin of the Vulgate, and suggestion of the writer William Golding, adult choir while the children sing a simultaneous the whole is topped and tailed by two of the Lovelock’s friend and neighbour in the village translation in English. The melody sung by the SOL JUSTITIAE Great Advent Antiphons. The music is scored for of Bowerchalke near Salisbury, where he was children is adapted from the Bedhaya Pangkur, words by James Barmby (1823-1897) unaccompanied choir in 40 parts and its layout living at the time. “My reason for persisting in a sacred dance of the Central Javanese court is modelled on that of Thomas Tallis’ Spem in calling the Earth Gaia and saying that it is alive gamelan tradition. James Barmby was Principal of Hatfield Hall alium, dividing the 40 parts into eight choirs is not a personal foible; it is because I see this (now Hatfield College), University of Durham, each of five parts: soprano, alto, tenor, baritone as an essential step in the process of public, as ‘The second hymn is a setting of the Orphic from 1859 to 1876. The text of the Latin hymn and bass.’ well as scientific, understanding. Until we all Hymn to Gaia. In addition to the voices, the which he wrote for use in the College Chapel feel intuitively that the Earth is a living system, music makes use of a single instrument, the was rediscovered in 2009, and is a meditation Earthrise was commissioned by Ex Cathedra and know that we are part of it, we will fail to bass drum, played with a conventional beater, on the journey from darkness into light.