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12’
a spatialised piece for six voices
commissioned by Abbaye du Royaumont Voix Nouvelles, written for EXAUDI
In many ways, Long pan requiem is a love letter to heterophony and the human voice. Split into two parts, the piece is a setting of an alphabeticalised list of every syllable used in the Introit of the Requiem Mass. Through simple ideas such as repetition, stasis and canon, the music functions like a sonic sculpture in an attempt to grind to a halt, or at other times totally freeze, the development of the music as time unfolds.
The singers are dispersed around a large, open, reverberant space, each facing a different angle rather than collectively directing their sound towards a single point; some face one another, others into walls or the corners of the space, or even outward and away from the rest of the ensemble. Each performer has an almost identical musical part, yet they sing independent of one another, slowly moving through their music at their own pace with each part governed by a unique set of repetitions and minuscule variations.
Royaumont Refectoire, where the first performance of Long Pan Requiem took place (September 2018)
The audience is free to walk around this constellation of choral sound, resulting in an ever shifting tapestry of individual voices in amongst the overall glow of the ensemble. This allows the listener to at times be up close to an individual performer, with the idiosyncrasies and intricacies of that singer’s voice providing a particular perspective on the music, before moving off back into the crowd as the sound continues to cycle around itself and the space.
This recording is made up of three different audience member’s journeys through the installation, each of whom carried a small microphone to capture their route around the singers, in amongst the movement of people, the drafts coming in from outside, and the sounds of toddlers chasing one another.
Many thanks to Foundation Royaumont for the opportunity to create this piece through their Voix Nouvelles programme, and to EXAUDI - Juliet Fraser, Lucy Goddard, Tom Williams, David de Winter, Simon Whiteley and Jimmy Holliday.
