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Desmond Leslie - Music Of The Future
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Year :: 2005
Label :: Trunk Records
Cat No :: JBH014CD
Genre :: Electronic
Tracks :: 15
Size :: 38,0 MB
Source :: CDDA
Bitrate :: VBRKBps
Rel. Date :: 06/07/2005
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THEME MUSIC FROM THE FILM ôTHE DAY THE SKY FELL INö
When producer Barry Shawzin brought me the cutting
copy of this brilliant pithy filmed comment on the
absurdity of super-weapons I felt that here was the
perfect film on which to graft my sounds. I was
right. It was a composers answer to prayer, and the
finished film caused a near riot at the Venice Film
Festival in 1959.
The film tells the story of a clever-clever scientist
(played by Roger Delgado) who is working on a device
that will undoubtedly be the ôultimate weaponö.
Scientist has a grown up idiot son (Terence Knapp)
who specialises in catching and dismembering flies
for intellectual improvement. The play-in consists of
three consecutive themes; 1. Destruction; 2, The
Idiot; 3, Armed Might. This is followed by The
Catching Of The Flies. Ending on a sound suggesting
idiot laughter, this theme gives way to the solemn
notes of The Scientist, followed by The Invention of
the Weapon. The work is interrupted by The Stranger,
who begs the scientist to desist. What he is doing is
tantamount to putting a dangerous weapon in the hands
of an idiot. Naturally the visitor gets nowhere fast,
so on leaving he gives the idiot son a loaded
revolver to play with. The scientist's footsteps ring
out eerily as he goes to his son's room to read him
ôChicken Lickenö. Stopped, aghast in the doorway his
eyes widen in horror and we zoom into a huge
frightening close-up of the Idiot with a loaded gun
in his mouth, his finger on the trigger. Musically,
The Struggle follows, giving way to the theme of
Anger. In fury the scientist telephones the police:
ôno one but a madman would put a dangerous weapon in
the hands of an idiot!ö. The film closes with an
appropriate musical comment.
MUSIC FROM THE VOIDS OF OUTER SPACE
This is a fairly descriptive work. Opening with
ASTEROIDS we appear to journey through, and leave
behind, that ruined part of the Solar System, known
as ôThe Asteroid Beltö. We are told musically of the
loneliness and desolation of this great ring of
cosmic debris and fractured bodies that lies between
the orbits of Jupiter and Mars where, (according to
Bode's law) there should be another planet. The belt
is either the ruins of a world that got too smart and
blew itself up or the embryo beginnings of a future
globe. In any case it is not a pleasantly place; far
high dark and wide.
MERCURY fleet messenger of the Gods is represented in
his hurrying by the rhythmic interblending of a
humming top (Harrods) and a motor horn (Morris Oxford
1951) and was completed in 1956. It is followed by a
recent work originally called ôAtoms of Heavy
Hydrogen Seeking Fissionö, but now renamed, ôComet in
Aquariusö.
COMET IN AQUARIUS. Comets I believe are the pulsing
spermatoza of space, darting on their eccentric
orbits seeking new ôworld eggsö to fertilise.
Immensely intangible and tenuous, they come and go,
and perhaps one in a million finds its mate and
brings forth new worlds as old suns fade and galaxies
die. The uneven broken patterns suggest its uneven
wanderings. This is a ôwatery cometö of the Aquarian
Age. If it succeeds I should not mind being reborn
with it.
THE WAR HORNS OF MARS. A study in cyclopean blocks of
sound - dark red brazen bulges. It should be played
with treble and bass lift in the middle passages.
Repairs to the ceiling are easily effected with a
ôDo-it-yourself-Apres-Musique-Concrete-Kitö.
SATURN. The inscrutable blue planet. The great
Pendulum of Chronos with its deep cosmic beat, the
sudden intrusion of its many satellites. A vast
ringed sphere gyrating through the ether, holding the
balancing arms of Absolute Justice. A beautiful
planet but a disturbing one.
SACRIFICE, B.C. 5,000 is designed to awaken primitive
mental images of a time when the line between
physical and etheric kingdoms was less rigid. As the
mists disperse, worshippers are summoned to a rocky
valley in whose centre lies a gigantic stone moved
into its position by sound waves. Group by group the
ritualists assemble. Suddenly a single stone-age reed
sounds through the undergrowth, a piping satyr
appears, followed by another, and by a thousand. The
whole valley resounds to their piping. Then the
priestly horns and drums on the rocky crags answer
each other in a brazen evocation. Completed, silence
descends, and the mortals await the coming of the
immortals.
The air fills with a myriad radiant forms, the
aerials and salamanders, nyads and dryads, gods of
earth, fire, air and water manifest themselves.
Meanwhile the hypnotic spell (an undulating bourden
note) begins to lull the victim into the necessary
state of ecstasy for sacrifice. The clumsy Centaurs
complete their dance, a single pipe rings out -
Sacrifice! - the spell fades and we are left with the
drone of a hot summer morning - and the Victim!
DEATH OF SATAN was originally composed as background
music for the A.B.C. Television performance of Ronald
Duncan's satirical play æDeath Of Satanö, produced by
Phillip Savill. The play which also ran at The Royal
Court Theatre might be described as a sequel to
Shaw's ôDon Juan in Hellö, which explains the
presence of a sent-up version of the Strauss Don Juan
theme as the opening passage, followed by a descent
into hell by electric elevator while ghoulies and
ghosties and long-leggidy beasties fill the
lift-shaft with their own ideas of what is suitable
to welcome a new arrival.
In this concert version, I have however, abandoned
satire for James Stevens, and his mystical poem of
the redemption of Satan where the Universe is rolled
up and his terrible work is done. Thus the
composition consists of Descent-Inferno-Danse-
Dantesque-Death of Satan-Bells of Heaven. Inferno
gives a graphic picture of a classical souterrain
full of echoing movement, unearthly fire and the
passage of things not good to look on. In the danse,
the demons work themselves into an exalted state and
plunge headlong into the Triple Pit of Oblivion,
leaving only a few winged denizens alone with their
dying master. The great bell of the ôDies Iraeö booms
out its chilling notes, proclaiming the end of the
lower worlds. The old dark lord is left alone. We
hear the whole unfolding of his evil, no longer
resentful, but resigned. For through the dissolution
a single faint voice can be heard, not more than a
thread, nevertheless it is the voice redemption. The
final knell brings deep peace, and from afar the
bells of heaven ring out welcoming the return of
ôtheir ancient peerö.
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THE DAY THE SKY FELL IN:
[01] Play In [00:26]
[02] Destruction Of The Flies [04:47]
[03] Invention of The Weapon [00:45]
[04] Stranger [01:40]
[05] Stranger's Quest [01:05]
[06] Finale/Play Out [01:52]
THE VOIDS OF OUTER SPACE:
[07] Asteroid Belt [02:12]
[08] Mercury Fleet Messenger Of The Gods [01:05]
[09] Comet In Aquarius [01:30]
[10] Warhorns Of Mars [01:40]
[11] Saturn Chronos [04:14]
SACRIFICE B.C. 5,000:
[12] Dawn Invocation [02:45]
[13] Gathering Of The Elders [04:33]
[14] Coming Of The Elements/The Victim [06:47]
DEATH OF SATAN:
[15] Esoteric Tone Poem [06:35]
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