Eduardo Reck Miranda: Mind Pieces, Sound to Sea. Computer-Aided Symphonic Works

Mind Pieces (2010)

Every now and then I find myself with a tune stuck in my mind. This is popularly known as an “earworm”, a common by-product of brain functioning. My earworms often include rhythms, timbres, sound textures, sound effects and orchestral passages, as well as tunes. Most of these do not exactly match music I have heard before. I often feel that the retrieval of musical information from my brain is not entirely accurate: my earworms seem to be variations on the originals. In Mind Pieces, I explored a number of ways to flush earworms out of my brain and compose with them. These include music by Holst, Ravel and Villa-Lobos, Brazilian tunes and birdsong.

Sound to Sea (2012)

Sound to Sea revisits the magnificent British choral tradition that emerged in the late nineteenth century from a twenty-first-century, postmodern perspective. This choral symphony portrays an epic musical voyage through a multitude of inspiring cultural references: the writings of Horace, Shakespeare and Mark Twain; the music of Mozart, Elgar and Schoenberg; the fate of the explorer Robert Scott; and Charles Darwin’s great expedition aboard HMS Beagle, which departed from Plymouth Sound on 27 December 1831.

Programme notes by Eduardo Reck Miranda.

Texts of Sound to Sea

Quadrivium

Latin expressions and words are combined with invented Latin-like words and a passage commonly attributed to Mark Twain (1835–1910), an attribution that is not established. Its closing words, “Explore, Dream, Discover”, are rendered in Latin as Indagate, Fingite, Invenite. Towards the end comes a quotation from Horace (65–8 BC), from the first book of his Odes.

Mu musica, cacai musi musi.
Ica, cacamu musi musi.
Casi ca casi,
melami ascame tri,
calano sica.
Ca musica, ica ica imucasi,
metu mumime,
no gesitri nomu sica.

Astronomia, astronomi nomia.
Astronomia.
Geometria,
cacamu musi musi.
Geometria,
caca imusi musi.

Calame situ cutro,
gemimu ascame,
asca.
Camecu tusime,
tucumu ascala,
asca.

Twenty years from now you,
will be more disappointed by,
the things that you did not do,
than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe,
harbour.
Catch the trade,
winds in your sails.

Indagate,
indagate indagate.
Fingite fingite.
Invenite.
Invenite, indagate, fingite, invenite, invenite.
Invenite, indagate, fingite, fingite, fingite.
Invenite!

Carpe diem,
quam minimum credula postero.
Present.
Future?

Raster Plot

Extracts from the writings of Plymouth-born explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912), including his diary entries from the final days of his ill-fated South Pole expedition in March 1912.

For God’s sake,
look after our people.
Had we lived
I should have had a tale to tell
of the hardihood, endurance, and courage
of my companions,
which would have stirred
the heart of every Englishman.

These rough notes
and our dead bodies
must tell the tale.

We shall stick it out
to the end,
but we are getting weaker
of course
and the end cannot be far.

It seems a pity,
but I do not think
I can write more.
For God’s sake,
look after our people.

Sonnet 55

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 55, written in the 1590s, considers time and immortality. The setting ends with the added Latin words invenite, indagate and fingite.

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

Invenite,
Indagate,
Fingite.

A Fine Rattling Breeze

Verses assembled from Charles Darwin’s diary of his voyage aboard HMS Beagle, which set sail from Plymouth on 27 December 1831. These extracts come from entries written while sailing along the Brazilian coast and staying in Rio de Janeiro between March and June 1832.

A fine breeze.
A fine breeze.
A rainy morning.
A flying fish
fell on the deck.
Harbour of Rio.
A fine breeze.
Rio de Janeiro was in sight.
A memorable spot
to many in the Beagle.
Rio de Janeiro.

The plan of the town
is very regular
the lines like those
in Edinburgh
running parallel
and others crossing them.

At right angles,
at right angles in parallel
crossing them.
The principal streets
leading from the squares
are straight and broad.
At right angles,
at right angles in parallel
crossing them.

Coffee, coffee,
Tapioca,
Camphor, sago,
Cloves and pepper.

Frogs make a musical concert.
Amused by the humming birds.
The constellations in the heaven …
This is my last day on the shore.
A calm day.
Frogs make a musical concert.
They are very busy
in stowing provision for sea.
We go to sea
on next Tuesday.
The moon is now shining brightly.

Got up at four o’clock
to go hunting,
parrots, monkeys, deer, toucans.
A little after nine o’clock
we tipped our anchor.
I dread this process
nearly as much as I did at Devonport.

The time during these eleven weeks
has passed so delightfully
that my feelings …
The moon is shining brightly
on the glassy water.