Harrison Birtwistle, "Carmen Arcadiae Mechnaicae Perpetuum"

The London Sinfonietta
Elgar Howarth

-- Liner Notes --

Soon after the first performance of Silbury Air in 1977, Birtwistle wrote a shorter work to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the formation of the London Sinfonietta the following year. Where the raison d'etre of the preceding work turns out to be melody, that is the one element excluded by design from Carmen Arcadiae Mechnaicae Perpetuum ('The Perpetual Song of Mechanical Arcady'). It juxtaposes six kinds of musical mechanism to create, a jagged, pulse-dominated structure, forcing them into continuity by the superimposition of separate dynamic and registral schemes. These move on a different time-scale from the mechanisms, so that repetitions acquire varied and distinct characters, and the pauses between them on long held pitches assume increasing importance as the work richochets through its course. The climax is reached at such a moment, when the extremes of dynamic and register are suddenly thrown into violent opposition.