Those with long memories will certainly recall Giles Swayne’s characteristically ambitious and absorbing response to an earlier commission from the BBC Singers: after long gestation, CRY was to emerge in 1980 as a vast and uniquely evocative tone-poem, an almost-wordless depiction for unaccompanied voices of the seven days of creation as told in the first chapter of Genesis. Lasting well over an hour, the age-old story was brought vividly to life in terms of the changing musical colours of an archetypal world as it moves from darkness into light, to the emergence of living creatures and the eventual arrival of humankind in the persons of Adam and Eve; its restful conclusion was reached on the single word anima, which in Latin embraces all things to do with the soul, and with breath as the spirit of life.

During the years that followed, an idea began slowly to take root of a companion-piece that might one day deconstruct some of the elaborate processes at work in CRY in order to use its newly disjunct material as the basis of an inverse musical narrative designed to reflect wantonness and decay. On the eve of the millennium, the moment had evidently come for Swayne to cry “Havoc!” and let loose his imagination on forces exactly twice the size.

HAVOC is again scored for the twenty-eight voices of the BBC Singers, but now with the considerable addition of a twenty-one-piece instrumental ensemble, plus two percussion players, a solo counter-tenor and a solo flute (doubling on alto and bass instruments), and a continuo group comprising celesta, marimba, Baroque harp and theorbo. All but the main orchestra are subject to various degrees of electronic treatment. The disembodied voice of the counter-tenor acts as both the “I am who am who was who ever shall be” of successive Prologues, and the nameless persona whose laconic statements form cartoon-like bubbles that from time to time punctuate the sectional divisions of the five main movements.

The chorus here acts as an extravagantly rich-textured, variably constituted, and generally wordless, backing group to the several soloists it yields from within itself as quartet, trio, duet and solo. It is these “fronting” voices that carry the burden of a quasi-narrative journey into space, via the invention of machines, to the airlessness of the dark side of the moon, to the not-quite-ultimate voice of an abandoned planet. The structural logistics are complex, for this is a scenario mirrored in terms not only of decreasing lengths of the movements themselves, but of a reduction in numbers both of the tersely punctuating “bubbles” and of the vocal soloists (from four to three, two , one, none) who are by turn drawn back into the surrounding chorus. The size of the main ensemble likewise diminishes, successively releasing players into a separate group of tutti “throbbers” who throughout mark the metrical outlines (of 5-7-5-3-5-7-5-11 beats) of the stanza-based Prologues. Set against this gradual decrease in the length of movements and size of the ensemble, in the number of intervening ‘bubbles’ and of solo singers, an overall increase in numbers of instruments joining the tutti “throbbers” is paralleled by the length of the prologues – which themselves follow an additive increase from the single stanza of the opening Prologue 1 to the seven stanzas of the closing Epilogue.

1: journey into space
around the sun – bubble 1 – freefall 1 – bubble 2 – moonsong – bubble 3 – freefall 2 – bubble 4 – starwheeling

Childhood memories of sci-fi delight are recaptured as soon as the solo bass flute of the first Prologue hands over to the ensemble at the start of a space odyssey around the sun: dazzled by cymbals and by wide-spaced open fifths, this single-chord ostinato sits suspended in its own space throughout. Declaimed in Latin by the chorus, echoed in English by one of the solo singers, the two free-fall movements, each a dynamic mirror of the other, rush to name the constellations as they seem to spin past. The intervening moonsong revolves around long-dead seas, adding layer upon layer to the opening “sun” chord to reach a climax of manic laughter before relinquishing its resonance to the desert dust. Here is rests, until a spiky canonic edginess floats it free to wheel around the stars.

2: delicate machines
water machine – bubble 1 – dust machine – bubble 2 – green machine – bubble 3 – dream machine An enveloping underwateriness of five tuned gongs first sets up a beguilingly rich foundation for the low voices of the chorus, while the instrumental layers persist with a liquid counterpoint of machine-like repetitions. Drily unpitched consonants then set the scene for a machine now scantily supported by the rotational emphasis of sliding chords and by a bass line that steps quietly up through a series of chromatic scales until blown away in a final puff of dust. The leafy peace of forest voices soon turns violent, with a bloodcurdling simulation of arboricide leading to the chorus to unite in a twenty-five-voice scream of protest; cut off in silence, the “scream” chord echoingly retrieves the thread of its matching five-note constituents as the yuppie vocal trio, temporarily embarrassed, protests its innocence. The musical machinery of the concluding dream-world turns positive (pitch) not negative (noise), as instruments adapt to the half-pitched speech of the chorus while echoing snatches of motivic evidence gleaned from the soloists.

3: out of air
free as air – bubble 1 – air power – minibreak – air abuse – bubble 2 – short of air – minibreak – fighting for air – minibreak – our of air

A twenty-six voice chorus of paired voices here projects a densely packed wall of sound that only gradually begins to be heard as an eleven-part rhythmic canon set alongside the equally intricate imitative procedures of eleven instruments. Right from the outset there are some (initially two pairs) who cannot sing but only gasp for air, just as there are others who increasingly prolong the second of each reiterating dyad to form chords whose overlapping incidence provokes a wave-like unease. Relishing a paired syncopation of their own, two solo sopranos develop a Valkyrie-like elation that begins to waver only as instruments join the textural struggle for survival. Pulsed throughout by muffled tom-toms and underlaid by a generally more sustained instrumental weave, the movement’s six sections decrease in length overall and are clearly demarcated by the breathing spaces formed by two “bubbles” and three tam-tam filled pauses.

4: into darkness
part 1 – bubble – part 2

With only one solo singer left, Antigone’s lament (from Sophocles’ play) becomes an extended soprano aria, whose soaring melodic lines derive from the vowel sounds of the ancient Greek words in such a way as to give rise to musical recurrences of a touchingly tonal kind. Echoed by unison chorus (in fact, three five-part unison choirs) and stealthily shadowed by a group of nine instruments, the accompaniment to this quasi-strophic song alternates between ensemble (with pizzicato underlay and propulsive tenor-drum figuration) and band formation (whose across-the-beat emphasis is held in steady check by the bass drum); it is here, during the bass-drum episodes, that the chorus inserts a syllabic chord sequence (sho ma lo la) which turns out to be an indirect quotation from a memorable moment in CRY. Even when these episodes start to overlap, following the entry of the final “bubble”, their contrasting identities remain significantly intact.

5: nothing
With no solo voices left, the chorus is for the first time united in its twenty-eight-part (7 x 4) formation. As if at random, tiny specks of voiced and unvoiced chords cut across the rotating focus of an instrumental septet that brings high instruments noticeably to the fore and, for the first time, without bass-line anchorage. But, as soon as isolated syllables begin to take on verbal connotations (‘a-ni-ma’), they are as quickly dispersed into float-away fragments. Eventually, as the instrumental texture starts to thin and the pitched voices are overtaken by a toneless muttering, a lone alto saxophone is heard breathing its last note into the chaos of a still flickering void. It is then that the solo flute picks up in pre-echo of an Epilogue that settles on ‘anima’ as the sole theme of seven-stanza meditation that includes the chorus to astonishing cadential effect.

Susan Bradshaw 1999

. . . perhaps the most extraordinary new commission of the season: a vast, 80-minute choral work called HAVOC . . . written by Giles Swayne for the BBC Singers and mixed instruments of the Endymion Ensemble. Twenty years ago Swayne wrote a similarly epic piece for the BBC Singers called CRY . . . HAVOC is a sister piece that takes the narrative idea of CRY and extends it. Where CRY dealt with the seven days of Creation, culminating in the handover of the world to mankind, HAVOC charts the terminal mess mankind has made of things ever since.

–

Complex choral symphonies alternating with oracle-like statements from a solo countertenor take the listener on a journey toward what would be complete despair but for the way the final section – designated nothing – closes with a lone voice musing on the Latin word for spirit: Anima. Clearly something does survive Swayne’s cataclysm . . .
. . . if there’s a living composer who writes with more virtuosity for voices, I don’t know of him. Or her. Swayne is a master, with a sweeping sense of theatre but a sharp command of detail.

Michael White – Independent on Sunday

HAVOC is a potent sequel to Swayne’s CRY of two decades ago. Where CRY was a meditation on the myth of creation, HAVOC is a tour de force designed to show what man has wreaked since . . .Texts that are both allusive and elusive fuel music of a fleeting, hallucinatory vividness which, in the best sense, is mesmerising.

Geoffrey Norris – Daily Telegraph

The late concert . . . was a wonder indeed. The BBC Singers and the Endymion Ensemble performed the magnificent final commission of this year’s festival, Giles Swayne’s HAVOC for countertenor, flute, continuo ensemble, choir and orchestra.

Rick Jones – Evening Standard

HAVOC is a massive, 80-minute critique of humanist, Straussian endeavour, as Swayne’s text unveils a future of apocalyptic environmental and social disasters . . . he translates this millennial angst into a diversity of musical references and structures. A countertenor, with continuo group, acts as the disaffected deity betrayed by human weakness. with music of beatific plangency. The choir and steadily diminishing group of soloists dramatise global warming and the destruction of the rain-forests . . . Swayne’s eclectic ear can produce some startlingly original effects. In one section, the chorus intones a Sophocles text against an irregular tolling of percussion, as if the Ancients themselves are imparting their doom-laden prophecies . . .

Tom Services – The Guardian

A late-night sonic space odyssey through the stars in search of the distant source of life: this is HAVOC . . . Rain-forest whistlings succumb to the dust of the desert; and in out of air, Swayne’s most virtuoso movement, an 11-part rhythmic canon forms a densely packed wall of vocal sound. It gradually disperses, through mourning and elegy, into the isolated syllables of anima. Where will Swayne go from here?

Hilary Finch – The Times

PROLOGUE 1

I am who am who was who ever shall be.

I am the heartbeat of the unborn child,

I am the glitter of long-forgotten stars;

I am the snake that swallows its own tail.

1:   JOURNEY INTO SPACE

 around the sun

Mission Control to Earth Voyager, Mission Control to Earth Voyager. . .

You are flying at six six five five two miles per hour on an elliptical orbit around a G2 star in the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy, at an altitude of ninety-two point nine million miles . . . Mission Control to Earth Voyager: are you receiving me? OVER.

Flying around the sun:

Our journey into Space has begun.

The star’s diameter is eight hundred and sixty-four thousand miles, and its mass is two point two times ten to the twenty-seven tons. It is made up of hydrogen and helium, which react by themonuclear fusion, releasing heat and light. The temperature at its core is fourteen million degrees Celsius. OVER.

The global race cannot be won

Unless the global race be one.

 It reached its present brightness and temperature eight hundred million years ago; in one point five billion years it will start to cool. OVER.

For, lost and found,

We all fly round

The sun.

In seven billion years it will collapse inwards, and the sudden surge of heat will destroy the solar system. OVER.

We all fly (a)round the sun.

OVER AND OUT.

bubble 1

Man searches Space for new worlds

free fall 1

Over. Over and out . . .

Andromeda, Antlia, Apus, Aquarius, Aquila, Ara, Aries, Auriga, Bootes, Camelopardalis, Caelum, Cancer, Carina, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Capricorn, Canes Venatici, Cassopeia, Centaurus, Cepheus, Cetus, Chameleon, , Cercinus, Coma Berenices, Columba, , Corvus, Crater, Corona Austrinus, Corona Borealis, Crux, Cygnus, Delphinus, Draco, Dorado, Eculeus, Eridanus, Fornax, Gemini, Grus, Hercules, Hydra, Horologium, Hydrus, Indus . . .

 The charioteer, the ploughman, the giraffe, the chisel, the crab, the keel, the big dog, the little god, the horns of the goat, the hounds of heaven, the centaur, the whale, the chameleon, the compasses, Berenice’s tresses, the dove, the crow, the punchbowl, the southern crown and the northern, the cross, the swan, the dolphin, the dragon, the golfish, the colt, the river, the oven, the twins, the crane . . .

Into the darkness,

Across the space between the stars,

We send out signals to infinity,

Listening for voices that are not ours.

 Over. Over and out.

bubble 2

He tames and occupies the moon

moonsong

The Sea of Rains, the Sea of Serenity, the Sea of Tranquillity, the Sea of Mists, the Sea of Crises, the Marginal Sea, the Sea of Waves, the Sea of Clouds, the Sea of Foam, the Sea of Liquids, the Sea of Fecundity, the Sea of Cold, Smyth’s Sea, the Southern Sea, the Sea of Nectar, Humboldt’s Sea, the Ocean of Whirlpools, the Charted Sea, the Sea of Rains.

Man in the Moon:

Up above the world so high,

Like a cheesecake in the sky,

Hi! Hi ya!

Man in the Moon!

Man’s rocket never flops:

Moon rock is the tops!

We’ll hock it till it drops

Out of the sky.

Buy lunar real estate:

Climate’s good, views are great!

You’ll get a special rate –

Hurry, or you’ll be too late!

Desert is as desert must:

Dead the laughter, cold the lust.

Genes and junkies,

Queens and monkeys,

All are deconstructed dust.

Lasers in the lunar skies –

How it pays to advertise!

Promote, expand and maximise

The human race.

Once the moon was made of cheese;

Now with lunar expertise

We export frozen peas

All over Space.

Up above the world so high,

Silicon Valley in the sky;

Will he laugh, or will he cry,

Our old Man in the Moon?

The Desert of Droughts, the Desert of Horrors, the Desert of Madness, the Desert of Plagues, the Desert of Loneliness, the Inner Desert, the Desert of Dust, the Desert of Silence, the Desert of Sterility, the Desert of Deadly Poisons, Smyth’s Desert, the Forgotten Desert, the Cloudless Desert, the Desert of Lumps and Bumps, the Desert of Burns, the Northern Desert, Humboldt’s Desert, the Desert of Shakes and Quakes, the Desert of Droughts.

Once upon a moon . . .

bubble 3

He feels the void within himself

free fall 2

Lacerta, Leo, Leo Minor, Lepu, Libra, Lupus, Lynx, Lyra, Mensa, Microscopium, Monoceros, Musca, Norma, Octans, Ophiucus, Orion, Pavo, Pegasus, Perseus, Phoenix, Pictor, Pisces, Piscis Austrinus, Puppis, Pyxis, Reticulum, Sagitta, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Sculptor, Scutum, Serpens, Sextans, Telescopium, Taurus, Triangulum, Tucan, Triangulum Australe, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Virgo, Volans, Vulpecula

 The lizard, the lion, the little lion, the hare, the scales, the wolf, the lynx, the lyre, the table, the microsope, the unicorn, the fly, the set-square, the octant, the snake-charmer, the peacock . . .

Are we alone in this darkness?

Is silence all there is to hear?

Are we masters of the universe?

Or God’s orphans, born to doubt and fear?

The fishes, the southern fish, the ship, the casket, the net, the arrow . . .

bubble 4

and he sets out for the stars

PROLOGUE 2

I spoke the first word; I made the Big Bang;

I am the end of the beginning

And the beginning of the end.

I am the unkown, the unknowing, the unknowable.

I am who am who am.

PROLOGUE 3

I gave you light, I gave you dark,

I gave you the clear blue sky.

I gave you bright waters,

I gave you fruitful soil and deep-breathing forests.

I gave you Sun, I gave you Moon,

I gave you stars to guide you.

I filled the air with flying colours,

I stocked the seas with shining fish;

I covered the land with running, leaping,

Crawling, creeping creatures.

PROLOGUE 4

I gave you this world to have and to hold,

For better or worse, till death you part.

I made you cunning, powerful and bold:

Homo sapiens sapiens – a race apart.

Now you must make account to me

For everything under the Sun.

What must be will surely be;

What is done can never be undone.

PROLOGUE 5

Adam and Eve, I made you free

To chart and change this fragile earth;

Free to do good and evil; free

To harm or heal the world that gave you birth.

You climbed to the top of the global tree

To pick its fatal fruit; and now,

By your marvellous knowledge, sea

And sky and land are poisoned. How

Could you expect to live and thrive

In havoc, greed and strife?

If you alone are left alive,

What is the point of life?

You know too much; you understand

Too little and too late.

The day of reckoning is at hand:

Prepare to meet your fate.