🎧 Harrison's Dream - Peter Graham

"Harrison's Dream" is a musical depiction of the forty-year effort by John Harrison during the first half of the 18th century to develop a chronometer capable of providing exact time on the high seas. His obsession was a result of the passing of the Longitude Act following the accidental destruction of the Association, the flagship of the British Royal Navy, along with three sister ships in 1707 on rocks off the Scilly Islands. The story goes...

"At 8.00pm on the 22nd of October 1707, the Association, flagship of the Royal Navy, struck rocks off the Sicily Isles with the loss of the entire crew. Throughout the rest of the evening the remaining three ships in the fleet suffered the same fate. Only 26 of the original 1647 crew members survived. The disaster was a direct result of an inability to calculate longitude, the most pressing scientific problem of the time. It pushed the longitude question to the forefront of the national consciousness and precipitated the Longitude Act. Parliament funded a prize of £20,000 to anyone whose method or device would solve the dilemma.

For carpenter and self taught clock-maker John Harrison, this was the beginning of a 40 year obsession. To calculate longitude it is necessary to know the time aboard ship and at the home port or place of known longitude, at precisely the same moment. Harrison's dream was to build a clock so accurate that this calculation could be made - an audacious feat of engineering.

This work reflects on aspects of this epic tale, brilliantly brought to life in Dava Sobel's book Longitude. Much of the music is mechanistic in tone and constructed along precise mathematical and metrical lines. The heart of the work however is human - the attraction of the £20,000 prize is often cited as Harrison's motivation.

However, the realisation that countless lives depended on a solution was one that haunted Harrison. The emotional core of the music reflects on this and in particular the evening of the 22nd October 1707."

This performance is by the Yorkshire Building Society Band, the test piece from the 2000 National Championships of Great Britain held in the Royal Albert Hall, London, England.