godsong  was commissioned by New McNaghten Concerts and first performed at St. John’s Smith Square, London, on 4^th December 1986 by Susan Bickley (mezzo soprano), Philippa Davies (flute, piccolo & alto flute), Christopher Mowat (alto trombone), Jonathan Williams (cello) and Stephen Pruslin (piano & celesta). The text is taken from the fifteenth century York cycle of Mystery plays. From a total of twenty-eight plays I have selected seventy lines of verse. These come mostly from the role of God; but god is meant in an archetypal sense, so the gods of pride (Lucifer) and evil (Satan) are also given their turn. Adam, the archetype of human frailty, is included - as is Thomas, whose stalwart refusal to believe without evidence makes him not only the patron saint of science but also a sympathetic archetype for our post-Christian era.

The narrative spans - by means of an introduction, prologue and 33 short movements - the whole of time as expressed in biblical mythology. However, there are no grandiose aspirations here: rather, the time-span is an excuse for attempting to create maximum variety within overall unity. And since time-scale and instrumental resources are miniaturised, the effect should be intimately human, rather than monumental.

The "cosmic" plan of godsong has points of similarity with that of my piece for voices CRY, which was first performed in 1980. Both deal with the Creation and use biblical mythology; both have a carefully organised overall structure and small-scale structures developed from simple modes or matrices. Both use series of numbers to organise some or all musical parameters. Both employ the device of summary or self-quotation: in CRY the seventh movement is a microcosm of the previous six, and in god-song the Prologue and movement 29 are summaries of the other movements.

The similarities between the two pieces, however, are less audible than the differences. The division of god-song into thirty-three short movements dictates a miniaturisation of time-scale and sets up a different balance between local structures. In simple terms, the sequence of thirty-three short movements needs to be carefully organised before the music can be written; but, that done, the internal organisation of the music can have greater freedom. So although the structural ideas behind CRY and god-song are similar, the musical realisation of the latter is both freer and more detailed.

godsong is scored for mezzo-soprano, flute (doubling piccolo & alto flute), alto trombone, cello and piano (doubling celesta). By using all the combinations of these five I came up with five solo movements, ten duos, ten trios, five quartets and one tutti movement.  There are in fact three tutti movements (nos. 5, 13 and 29), which are spread across the piece like the pillars of a bridge. The Prologue, which precedes movement 1 and acts as a table of contents, also uses the full ensemble.

The pitch-material consists of eight-note modes or matrices. It is in the use of these that godsong differs from CRY - they are used only occasionally as modes. Far more often they are subjected to serial transformation, so that - although all the notes derive from the intervallic relationships of the matrix, the eight-note purity is not preserved. In other words, the pitch-matrices are relative, and serial not absolute or modal. This allowed greater exploration of the inner possibilities of the pitch-matrix than if I had restricted myself to using it purely as a mode. There are, in fact, a few points in the piece where I have restricted myself to the eight-note mode; but they are exceptional.

Just as each movement has its own scoring, it also has its own eight-mode pitch-matrix. The arrangement of these is closely linked to the scoring - for example, the movement for solo cello has the same pitch matrix as its "mirror" for voice, flute, trombone & piano, but transposed to a different level, so that the pitches are different, but the relationships between them are identical. In ordering the sequence of movements I tried to achieve a balance between contrast and continuity; and this is also influenced by the nature of the narrative.

I apologise to the listener's for the foregoing explanation, which reads rather like the translation from Japanese of instructions for an electronic appliance. Putting musical things into words is always difficult, and often counterproductive. However, I did feel the need to explain the background of godsong. None of that means anything, of course, unless the music works its magic.

Giles Swayne
2025

". . . he manages to hold our attention by means of the sheer veracity, the sheer audacity of his writing."

The Times

". . . over and again - in the delectable  flute and celeste writing evoking Eve alone in the  Garden, or the finely arched cello solo labelled "Adam's  sweat and swink - there were reminders of a deep musicality . . ."

The Independent

"It certainly sounded as if Swayne has up his sleeve another work of the stature of CRY"

The Guardian