The World's Ransoming / the Confession Of

LSO Live James Macmillan The World’s Ransoming The Confesion of Isobel Gowdie Sir Colin Davis Christine Pendrill London Symphony Orchestra James Macmillan (1959) Page Index The World’s Ransoming (1995–96) The Confession of Iosbel Gowdie (1990) 3 English notes 4 French notes 5 German notes 6 Composer Biography 7 Conductor Biography 1 The World’s Ransoming* 22’14’’ 8 Artist Biography 9 Orchestra personnel list 2 The Confession of Isobel Gowdie** 22’51’’ 10 LSO biography Total time 45’05’’ James Mallinson producer Daniele Quilleri casting consultant Classic Sound Ltd recording, editing and mastering facilities Jonathan Stokes for Classic Sound Ltd balance engineer Ian Watson and Jenni Whiteside for Classic Sound Ltd editors A high density DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording *Recorded live at the Barbican, London 24 and 25 September 2003 ** Recorded live at the Barbican, London 21 February and 3 March 2007 © 2008 London Symphony Orchestra, London UK P 2008 London Symphony Orchestra, London UK 2 James Macmillan (b1659) with a sense of urgent anticipation, involving an The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990) become a hare, a cat or a crow; she used The World’s Ransoming (1995–96) increasingly violent and dramatic interplay of waxen images and bags of boiled toads to materials, taken from their liturgical sources. It is an extraordinary fact that in the centuries cause inflictions; she had killed a ploughman The World’s Ransoming is the first of three After the upheaval the music eventually before the Reformation the number of known with elf-arrows the devil gave her, sometimes interrelated works forming a triptych, subsides, the cor anglais returning to its original executions for witchcraft in Scotland was in the devil beat her and raped her: ’he would be commissioned by the London Symphony long, slow keening melody while the orchestral single figures; but in the years between 1560 beating us all up and down with cords and Orchestra. The second work is a Cello Concerto context shifts its perspective. Bleak, wooden and 1707 as many as 4,500 Scots perished other sharp scourges like naked ghaists’; he for Mstislav Rostropovich and the third work a percussive sounds finally manage to emerge to because their contemporaries thought they was a stag or a bull, or ’a very mickle, black large symphonic score Symphony: Vigil, bring the music to a close, while also setting were witches. The persecution of witches was a rough man’. She was subsequently strangled at conducted at its première by Rostropovich. All the scene for the next piece in the cycle, the phenomenon known to Catholic and Protestant the stake and burned in pitch amid scenes of three relate to the events and liturgies of the Cello Concerto. The title came about through Europe at this time, but the Reformation in hysterical fright and sadism. Initially I was Easter Triduum, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, reflection on the melody and words of St Scotland gave an impetus to the attack on drawn by the dramatic and programmatic and the Easter Vigil. Thomas Aquinas’ hymn, Pange lingua: ’witches’ which became a popular and potential of this insane and terrible story but powerful crusade. Mediaeval notions of good the work soon developed a far more emotional The World’s Ransoming focuses on Maundy Of the glorious Body telling, and evil spirits had been repressed by the core as I attempted to draw together various Thursday and its musical material includes Oh my tongue, its mysteries sing, Reformers – to seek the intercession of saints strands in a single, complicated act of references to plainsongs for that day, Pange And the Blood, all price excelling, was no longer a virtue but a superstition, to contrition. On behalf of the Scottish people the lingua and Ubi caritas, as well as a Bach chorale Which the world’s eternal King leave out milk for the fairies or to give oatmeal work craves absolution and offers Isobel (Ach wie nichtig), which I have heard being In a noble womb once dwelling, to a witch was seen as a Satanic act. Therefore, Gowdie the mercy and humanity that was sung in the Eucharistic procession to the altar Shed for the world’s ransoming. Scotland’s experiences with witch-hunting can denied her in the last days of her life. To do this of repose. The cor anglais part emerges from be seen as defensive responses to the fear of I have tried to capture the soul of Scotland in the orchestra to carry the lamenting ritual alien traditions and cultures, and to the more music, and the work’s outer sections contain a through a long, slow and delicately-scored basic fear of those who were different from the multitude of chants, songs and litanies (real and introduction, and then through a process of majority. Many of the victims were women imagined) coming together in a reflective metric gear-changes as the music becomes whose sex alone seems to have been the outpouring – a prayer for the murdered woman. more animated. inspiration for their persecutors’ zeal. Mass This work is the Requiem that Isobel Gowdie hysteria surrounded the suspicion of these never had. Although the music is through-composed and women from whom confessions were extorted seamless, a series of trios emerge to carry the through torture of the severest kind. In 1662 Programme note © James MacMillan music forward. The cor anglais is first joined by Isobel Gowdie from Nairn confessed to having a pair of bassoons, then a pair of cellos and been baptised by the devil and joining a coven later two horns, two percussionists, two of 13 who met at night; she had journeyed to piccolos and, briefly, two violins. The impetus of the centre of the earth to feast with the king this twenty-minute work grows cumulatively and queen of the fairies; she could fly, or 3 James MacMillan (né en 1959) ouvre de vingt minutes augmente par The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990) transformer en lièvre, en chat ou en corneille; The World’s Ransoming (1995-1996) accumulation, avec un sentiment d’attente et elle utilisait des figurines de cire et des sacs de d’urgence qui se traduit notamment par une Par un fait extraordinaire, avant la Réforme le crapauds bouillis afin de causer des fléaux; elle The World’s Ransoming (Le Prix de ce monde) interaction de plus en plus violente et nombre des exécutions pour sorcellerie avait tué un laboureur avec des flèches est la première de trois ouvres reliées entre dramatique entre les matériaux, sortis de leurs connues, en Ecosse, se compte en unités; mais magiques offertes par le diable; parfois le diable elles et formant un triptyque, commandées par contextes liturgiques. Après cette agitation, la de 1560 à 1707, c’est quelque 4500 Ecossaises la battait et la violait: «il nous battait tous des le London Symphony Orchestra. La deuxième musique finit par s’effondrer, le cor anglais que leurs contemporains firent périr parce pieds à la tête avec des cordes et des fouets est un Concerto pour violoncelle écrit pour revient à sa longue et lente mélopée initiale qu’elles étaient des sorcières. La chasse aux cinglants, comme des fantômes nus». Il prenait Mstislav Rostropovitch et la troisième une vaste tandis que le contexte orchestral change sorcières était un phénomène avéré dans l’apparence d’un cerf ou d’un taureau, ou d’«un partition symphonique, Symphony: Vigil soudainement. Des sons mornes de l’Europe catholique et protestante de l’époque, homme très grand, noir et rude». A la suite de (Symphonie: Vigile), créée sous la direction de percussions en bois réussissent finalement à mais la Réforme donna, en Ecosse, une cela, elle fut étranglée et brûlée au bûcher, au Rostropovitch. Ces trois partitions se réfèrent percer, amenant la musique à sa conclusion, impulsion aux attaques contre les «sorcières», milieu de scènes de frayeur et de sadisme aux événements et à la liturgie du Triduum tout en dressant le décor de la pièce suivante jusqu’à ce que cela prenne le tour d’une hystériques. A l’origine, j’ai été attiré par le pascal, à savoir le Jeudi saint, le Vendredi saint, du cycle, le Concerto pour violoncelle. intense croisade populaire. Les notions potentiel dramatique et programmatique de et la Vigile pascale. médiévales d’esprits bienfaisants et malfaisants cette histoire insensée et terrible, mais l’ouvre Le titre est venu à force de réflexion sur la avaient été réprimées par les Réformateurs – s’est bientôt développée autour d’un axe The World’s Ransoming est centré sur le Jeudi mélodie et les mots de l’hymne de saint demander l’intercession de saints n’était plus beaucoup plus émotionnel, tandis que je tentais saint, et son matériau musical inclut des Thomas d’Aquin Pange lingua: une vertu mais une superstition, laisser du lait de tisser ensemble les fils épars en un acte de allusions aux plains-chants de ce jour, Pange pour les fées ou donner de la bouillie d’avoine contrition complexe et unique. Au nom du lingua et Ubi caritas, ainsi qu’à un choral de Chante, ô ma langue, le mystère à une sorcière passait pour un acte satanique. peuple écossais, l’ouvre demande l’absolution Bach (Ach wie nichtig), que De ce corps très glorieux Ainsi la chasse aux sorcières vécue par l’Ecosse et offre à Isobel Gowdie la miséricorde et j’ai entendu chanté dans la procession Et de ce sang si précieux pourrait-elle n’être que la réaction de défense l’humanité qu’on lui avait refusées dans les eucharistique menant au reposoir. La partie de Que le Roi de nations contre la peur de traditions et de cultures derniers jours de sa vie.

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