Boosey & Hawkes
Darkness Moves II is a continuation of my exploration of the work and ideas of the Belgian-born poet and artist Henri Michaux (1899-1984). In 1955, he experimented with the drug mescaline four times over the period of six months. He found that the most striking effects were not profound transformations of external objects but rather the inner visions which poured through his mind like a weirdly agitated and vibrating film, often seeming to possess his whole being.
Broadly speaking, what I've tried to do is create an aural equivalent of what this experience might have felt like: a dark, frightening, ecstatic, earth-shattering dive into the unknown and a deep confrontation with the self.
Whilst Darkness Moves I featured a recording played almost simultaneously and manipulated in a slightly controlled improvised manner with live electronics in real time, my ideas for the electronic component of Darkness Moves II were more specific and, as a result, the piece is very much a duet between the horn and electronics.
Thanks go to Ben Goldscheider and the Marchus Trust for commissioning this work and also to Philip Dawson, whose expertise in realising my ideas for the electronic component have been exactly as I'd heard them.
Mark Simpson, 2024
Reproduction Rights
This programme note can be reproduced free of charge in concert programmes with a credit to the composer.