Rebecca Saunders: Yes (2016/17)

Rebecca Saunders (*1967)
Yes, a spatial performance for soprano, 19 soloists and conductor (2016/17)
texts from the final chapter of “Ulysses”, Molly Bloom, by James Joyce

Juliet Fraser, soprano
Ensemble Musikfabrik
Enno Poppe, conductor

UK Première, 16 November 2018, HCMF '18


Yes is a reference to Molly Bloom’s monologue, the final chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. This monologue can be regarded as a kind of literary collage, a web woven from the innumerable paths traced by stories, thoughts, and moments in a continuous, unremitting, high-energy stream: a snapshot, a state of being before and during the act of falling asleep, amid glimmerings of the subconscious.

The text flows with the inhalations and exhalations of the musicians, between moments of absence and presence. Though not always audible, the text remains subcutaneous, present, tangible. For moments at a time it emerges, becoming visible, audible, and intelligible, before disappearing again – just as moments of Bloom’s biography, her personality, her memories take on temporary form in her inner monologue, her stream of consciousness, only to sink back into the river of time.

The repeated “yes” is ambiguous and complex; it casts many shadows and alludes to many themes: the moment of half-conscious orgasm; the life-affirming “yes”; the “yes” that seals one’s acceptance of one’s fate; the memories of an unusually adventurous lover, and of the time when Bloom said “yes” to her future husband. These deeply erotic moments in all their facets, from romantic to soberingly grotesque, are depicted in the text in a variety of shadings, merging and overlapping with one another.

A singer stands on the stage – a theatrical moment in and of itself. The human body, our anticipation of it, of every movement of the eyes, the corners of the mouth – therein lies infinite potential. In Yes, both soprano and instrumentalists are viewed as protagonists in a sort of abstract theater, operating in a shared auditory landscape. And they interact with the text, whose narrative side is suppressed in various ways and transformed into a kind of sonic surface. The music implies, suggests, formulates, and defines ways of perceiving the words.

Twenty-five separately composed soli, chamber-music works, and ensemble pieces – the modules – are distributed throughout the space. Almost every module represents, with exhaustive persistence, an immutable state, enduring and fundamentally unchanging. Recurring sound fragments, subtly but constantly varying, gradually produce a complete picture. A gigantic sculpture arises, a mobile that persists, untouched, while it is perceived from the most varied perspectives: The light changes, as the focus and position of perception shift, as proximity to the object alternates with distance from it – the manifest, complex extension of a single object.

My desire is to create a music which steps out of the flow of time, which is projected into space like a sound sculpture – and which, at the moment of listening, enables total focus on the physical presence of the sound.


Photo by Kai Bienert (at the World Première)

Official Composer Website
https://www.rebeccasaunders.net/


This video has a purpose of promotion, not for profit.
If you have any complaints about copyright issues, please write me a direct message at dhdmlwls02(at)gmail(dot)com before submitting a report to YouTube. Then I will delete the video as soon as possible.