|---> AN ISLAND IN THE MOON <---| Music by Ben Mawson inspired by Blake's poems of the same name


HOME	MUSIC :ACOUSTIC :DIGITAL :VIRTUAL	CONTACT

• Works to Date • Music for Inhuman Hands • ". . . Ond his modgidanc" • Virtual Music Performance • What I Must Have • An Island in the Moon •

• Seditious Illegitimate •

Songs from "An Island in the Moon"

Music for Automated Piano & Cello

inspired by William Blake's poemsof the same name

LISTEN - to excerpts from the music. Free tracks available from 1 December
READ - William Blake's unpublished manuscript, edited and published here for the first time

This music was inspired by the maniacal, almost demonic joy I experienced on first reading the poems' from this least known of William Blake's work, the unpublished and unfinished "An Island in the Moon".

A friend put me in touch with the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, where the only manuscript for the piece is held and I was able to obtain a transcript of the full text, which has not yet seen publication.

Composed with great rapidity at a computer, in the excitement that the poems induced, the music was at first conceived for piano and cello.

However, as the pieces progressed, taking on a momentum of their own, they quickly took on a form and technical complexity that it would be impossible for humans to perform, being so fast and rhythmically dense.

Several attempts followed to rewrite the music for performance by the pianist and cellist for whom it was imagined.

As these new versions took shape, it was clear that the original crazy rush that had inspired them was being lost to an altogther more dignified and formal music. The maniacal exuberance with which they had been conceived had disappeared.

It became clear that this automated, inhuman orchestra had to be the performer of music that had been composed at a machine and was inspired by an insane landscape and its bizarre occupants, and this is how they will first be heard at performance later this year.

-------- ~ ~ - - ~~ - - ~ ~ --------

Two performers, one male and one female sit opposite each other in the attitude of musicians ready to tune up, one holding a broken saxophone and the other, a phonofiddle (a one-stringed cello with no body to resonate the notes produced but, instead, a gigantic brass horn).

As they tell the tale, sharing the narrative and voices of the characters between them, they are frequently interrupted by an explosion of chaotic Lunar music, for automated piano and 'cello -
Songs from an Island in the Moon

Ancient of Days

Poet, painter, engraver, eccentric,
phrygian bonnet wearer,
revolutionary

The Whirlwind of Lovers

-------- ~ ~ - - ~~ - - ~ ~ --------

Songs from An Island in the Moon
Music for Automated Piano & Cello

inspired by
Poems by William Blake
from the unpublished satire of the same name

No. 1

No. 3

No. 5

No.16

MP3 Downloads available from Summer 2011 on this page - please either bookmark and return or send a request and I will email the direct link the moment the music is live on the site