The Persistence Of Memory

Music by Ciaran Hope

****[sheet music: Download Score]****

About the Piece:

I have long been fascinated with the association between music and the visual arts, such as drawing, painting and architecture. For me, this association seems the most natural thing in the world. So, when I was making my way through some art books last November, I stumbled across the picture that I wanted to turn into music. "The Persistence Of Memory" by Salvador Dali was painted in 1931. It is an oil canvas of 24x33cm, and is at present housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This is one of Dali's most memorable Surrealist works, indeed the one with which he is most often associated. One hot August afternoon, in 1931, upon taking a pencil, and sliding it under a bit of Camembert cheese which had become softer and runnier than usual in the summer heat, Dali was inspired with the idea for the melting watches, a symbol commonly associated with Dali's Surrealism depicting the irrelevance of time. The painting shows a typical Dalinian landscape, with the craggy rocks of his beloved Cape Creus jutting up in the background to the right. In the foreground, a sort of amorphous self portrait of Dali seems to melt. Three Separate Melting Watch images even out the foreground of the work.

What caught my attention was the fascinating construction of the picture, the suggested time relation between the clocks, the juxtaposition of the imagery in the foreground and the background. One of the most fascinating things about the painting, is the way it appears as a photograph, but when you look at it again, it looks to real to be a photo, everything has too much presence! With all this material, and multiple views on what the picture actually represents and what emotions it evokes, the only way for me to represent it with music, was as I personally see the picture. The result of this, is my piece, of the same name, which has been written for Clarinet Quartet (Bb, Eb, A and Bass) or Saxaphone Quartet(Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass) and Tape.I will complete this discussion in relation to a Clarinet Quartet and Tape.

I decided to base the piece on the pitch centre E, and if it is possible to suggest a mode, then it would have to be the phrygian mode. It is a one movement piece, in six sections, consisting of an introduction, a finale, and four thematic sections. I feel there are four important descriptors in the picture. Three warped clocks, and what appears to be a closed watch-case, covered in scampering ants. Each thematic section describes a watch/clock. A tree, the sea, the beach, mountains, and sky are references in the picture. They are important to the picture as a whole, but not defining. That is left to the clocks.

Introduction:

The Introduction starts off using synthesised sounds to generate a dreamlike abyss, as if trying to prepare the canvas for the artists brush. From this suggestive beginning, emerges a hollow beat. In fact it is a synthesised heat beat. Listening to it closely, it can be heard that it acts like a base drum, but sounds different. It generates a sound that suggests the forte of the beat doesn’t arrive until after the impact. The listener at first hears a heart beat. Pitch is not noticed in particular, however it is important, because like everything else about the construction of the piece, contrast is  stressed. So, if we were to split pitch into lower upper and central, then the starting pitch would be central. The background of the picture is painted, using sounds that suggest waves breaking on the beach, crashing against cliffs, thriving on turbulence, and birds flying in the wind, sitting on the cliffs and in the trees. Whether it is dawn or dusk, we do not know, that, is left to our subconscious mind to decide.

When the clarinets enter the fray, they do so gradually, and with little extravagance. Simplicity but precision is the key to achieving the representation I envisage. Contrast is again used, contrast of the sonorities that are available with the instruments performing. The different tone quality of the A and Bb clarinets is explored by letting the A clarinet play higher pitches than the Bb in the opening. All clarinets are making massive use of the instruments vast dynamic range in the introduction. Long E’s are held, and ‘grown’ on each instrument, instruments pairing up to do this at certain points. Eventually at bar 8, a break in the present approach occurs. It is a type of quasi bridge passage to the first thematic section. Shorter notation is introduced, in conjunction with the ever-present sustained notes. Dynamic contrast is still pursued, to continue to present a dreamlike, suggestive picture.

Portrait Clock:

In the foreground, a sort of amorphous self portrait of Dali seems to melt. It lies on the ground, and a clock is melting over it. The first thematic section is based on this Portrait Clock. The tape sound has changed behind the ever stronger presence of the instruments. Now, a more focused approach is required to delve into the significance of each of my chosen themes. The tape sound undergoes a collection of small but significant changes during this period. A new rhythmical device is used to phase out the heart beat. It is more suggestive of turmoil, and crazy sounds, like traffic, distant hustle and bustle, rubbish, and all the things that refuse to let you have those elusive moments of peace one longs for at the sea. This is done to move the piece forward to its next phase, yet keeping a link with where it has come from.  The whole concept of turmoil and crazed things  is also employed to generate the confusion that is in our minds when looking at the portrait, if that indeed is what Dali intended it to be. It is important to continually suggest the imagery of the painting, the background especially, as the instrumental part is dealing mainly with aspects of the foreground. In the instruments, for the first time, there is the sight of a theme, which is played by the Eb Clarinet. It solos on the theme at first, but later, the Bb and A clarinets at bars 21 and 22, share a counter subject, which was first seen in the Eb and Bb clarinets at bars 18 and 19. This counter subject is an important point in the pieces development, as it is the first point at which the note E is varied. G and F are introduced. This section is rhythmically warped, like the clock. Even though the section is played at a fixed tempo, rhythms are varied using triplets and groupings of four and five alternately, helping to give a controlled yet erratic feel to the rhythm. At the end of this section, the tape gives more prominence to the sounds of the birds, there sounds come in waves, just like the sea.

Tree Clock:

At this point, bar 28, the transition to the next foreground theme of the painting is approached. I chose to make the piece cyclic within itself, ending up the way it started, and that is important in my choice of which of my chosen themes to breach next. I took an anticlockwise approach to representing them, to add to my impression of warped timing. Hence, the next clock to be ‘painted’ is the Tree Clock. A new rhythmic pattern emerges, one that suggests happiness, gaiety, things that we associate when we think of birds chirping in the trees, wind gusting through. The birds one imagines in the tree become more prominent. Groups of bird sounds are contrasted, lower, central and higher groups.  Part of the tree is broken off, there are no leaves, but it is not entirely bare, it has time, which can bring new leaves, new growth, fresh young birds singing in the wind. The choice of music suggests urgency in this respect. The brief section of accelerandos and Ralls suggests the mental confusion on first being faced with the tree and clock, trying to decide the correct view of their representation. A heart beat heard at a high pitch adds to the confused feel. The clock on the tree is the smoothest of all the clocks, and the choice of groupings of six and five help to push the music forward at a more even pace suggested by the more conforming of the clocks. A ‘C’ is seen in the Bass clarinet part at bar 34. This has a dual purpose. It is placed to represent a blemish of sorts on the clock face, and to hint at further change, further deviation from the mono-notation that the piece has come from. At bars 38 and 39, the music is slowed in the bass clarinet, just to remind us of the warped edge of the clock face.

At 41, the ‘Tree’ section climaxes. The Eb clarinet is used to help push the  section into memory, fade it into the distance using a long sustained fading high E. It seems like a distant memory by the time we hear the heart re-emerge into the piece at a central pitch again.

Ledge Clock:

Now, the Ledge Clock is to be represented. It is more distorted than the last clock, but its face is more in view than any of the other clocks. The sounds that are supporting get more complex again, to generate the texture that displays the location of the clock. It is near the tree, but nearer the ground than the last clock, so, sporadic bird calls can be heard, and the sense of centralness in the picture of sound is heightened by the use of groupings of heart beats, at low, central and high pitches. A theme is introduced this time on the Bb clarinet. It is based around the same selection of pitches that have been concentrated on so far. The A clarinet is playing similar pitches, playing on the difference in tone from the two instruments at a similar pitch. The bass takes over the theme for the first time in the piece at bar 44. As it does this, the Eb begins an interesting new counter subject based on a regular beat with some grace notes added to suggest ripples in the consistency. This feeling is heightened by the emergence of  groups of eight notes in the Bb clarinet. These groups are representing the passing of the rhythm of the clock, through the ripples that we see on it. They are regular reimerging ripples. As if to try and force the clock to work, the bass, followed by the A clarinet takes up the counter subject in fugue like fashion with the Eb.  The whole movement hints at failing on the first beat of bar 48, but by bar 49, we see that it is over its little indecisiveness and is continuing around the clock again. The sounds are slightly altered this time, which highlights the irregularity of a warped clock, yet the monotonous echoing of the heart in the background keeps a surreal control over the direction of the music. At 52, it seems that there is a real struggle to keep the music ticking, but it forces its way around, through sheer momentum, and the piece reaches its own frantic climax at bar 57, through a defining chromatic descent through all the instruments, ending up with the bass clarinet pounding out the theme for the ultimate time.

Ants:

The tempo quickens, and becomes somewhat frantic, but unclear. A wild but new rhythmic device is used to crown this eagerness.  Old rhythmic devices are reused, to stimulate our memories about earlier themes, and other images that are ever present in the painting. By bar 61, the Eb clarinet begins the final theme, one of Ants on the closed clock face. It is quickly followed by the other 3 instruments, generating a frantic rhythmic feel to the music, suggesting the scurrying of ants over the clock face, but we cant see the time, and we don’t know how to deal with this. It is up to the imagination to guess what the clock is doing. The fullness of sound that is generated when al the instruments are playing together in this section has not previously been seen in the piece, yet the choice of notes to be played is a reminder of where the music has come from. When this clock is imagined, one wonders whether it is regular inside, unwarped, or is it like the others, disfigured. By bar 65 the motion comes to a standstill, using two chords, the second dissonant, to halt the scurry of the ants , and push them into memory along with the unknown time they sought.

Finale:

Bar 67 sees the reintroduction of the dreamlike sounds that were present at the beginning. Our memories are refreshed, and given a relapse of the sounds from the introduction, which completes the cycle in this finale, and locks our memory into a loop. The wildness and extravagance of some of the thematic suggestions are left in time, and the simple approach is accepted once again. It is like going through the piece in reverse. Everything is stepped through in reverse, until the long lone E sound appears again. It is like entering the abyss that was left behind at the start of the piece, so that the outside could be explored. In that abyss, time is meaningless, of little or no significance. Warped or melted time is what is employed outside this timeless background, in the form of the melted warping clocks to try and contrast both possiblities, and to show the insignificance of time as a concept as we know it. As if trying to make a last bid for the usefulness of rhythm,  a lone syncopated rhythm appears in  bar 74, and repeats itself once, before the piece comes to a close for the instruments drifting away on the E sonority. The tape, finishes the way it started, letting the imagination rule, as it finishes by leaving images floating in the imagination, fading away, persisting in memory.