Jonathan Pitkin
'…WHISPERING, CLAMORING…' for string orchestra (2005)
Duration: 7 mins
Click here to see the SCORE.
The title of this piece is taken from a sentence in Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening:
'The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.'
Whilst these words might be considered to provide an apt description of the effect of the music as a whole, there are in fact a number of quite specific visual, acoustic and physical images of the sea which I sought to translate in some way into musical textures and events, in order to provide starting-points for different parts of the piece: billowing currents pulling in different directions; rows of waves swelling, accelerating and breaking; a repeated plunging under the water and re-emerging; and finally sun glinting off the water's surface.
'…whispering, clamoring…' was commissioned by Peninsula Arts for the Ten Tors Orchestra, who gave the first performances in Devon and Cornwall in 2005.