PHARMAKEIA - Programme

Co-commissioned by the London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Produced by London Sinfonietta in association with hcmf// and Southbank Centre
With the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

James Dillon Pharmakeia 60'
     i. Tenemos
     ii. Strophe a
     iii. Circe
     iv. Strophe b

Tenemos [from the Greek temno to ‘cut’] has a more ancient predecessor in the Sumerian, temen, which referred to a sacred space, the origin of the Latin ‘templum’ (or the English ‘temple’), terms which also hold the root to the English word ‘time’. Here space and time are ‘cut off’ from everyday activities, the foundation of both the temple and ritual, these sacred spaces are often chosen by a process of divination. Divination (or sympathetic magic) comes through the observation of natural phenomena for ex. An olive grove may be seen as a dwelling that housed god’s image. Carl Jung relates the temenos to spellbinding or magic circles where the ‘temenos’ resembles among others a “symmetrical rose garden with a fountain in the middle (a squared circle)”.

Strophe (from Greek στροϕή, ‘turn, bend, twist’) is a concept which properly means ‘a turn’, as in the distribution of weight within a musical measure, or a turn from one side of a [Greek] chorus to another. Here strophe a turns away from ‘Temenos’ and towards ‘Circe’; strophe b turns away from ‘Circe’ and towards a by now silent Temenos.

Circe (Kirke) was a goddess of sorcery (Pharmakeia) who was skilled in the magic of transmutation, illusion, and necromancy. Circe’s (Kirke’s) name is derived from the Greek verb kirkoô meaning ‘to secure with rings’ or ‘hoop around’ – a reference to the binding power of magic.

The two movements (strophe a & b) cannot be performed independently of the cycle Pharmakeia.

James Dillon

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We are all of us old. Our genes, though endlessly permuted, we share with ancestors who first made fires by which to sit and nurse their children. Their drives and responses are still ours; where they saw holiness, we see at least a trace, a shadow.

James Dillon’s Pharmakeia is a work of what might be called internal archaeology. It is music that, with the present-day resources of an orchestra of disparate colours, sounds from within us our surviving senses of the eternally strange, the overpowering, the darkly magical.

Its title from the ancient Greek, Pharmakeia, is cognate with our word “pharmacy” and means “the use of drugs”. Drugs are turning points – from illness to health, from normality to excitation – and there is a lot of turning in this music: circlings; circlings within circlings; slow, effortful change; turns and returns.

Dillon goes again to ancient Greek for his movement titles, beginning with “Temenos”, the term for a sacred precinct, as around a temple. The example here is massive, made of great blocks, of which the first, instantly summoning the uncanny, is a duet for trumpet and trombone. The two instruments stay an octave apart and play only white notes. This might be a chant, but of a kind not heard before. Later blocks bring forward different groupings, but the tempo remains slow, though sometimes overlaid with quicker lines, suggesting creeper taking over an abandoned sanctuary. The atmosphere is sombre, and outlines of the initiating duet keep recurring. Sonic vestiges of the unearthly – very low tones, bell chimes, pulsings – find a place. But there are also familiar chords, shards appearing unexpectedly in walls of pervading mystery.

This movement, playing for over twenty minutes, is followed by one only a third as long: “strophe a”. Now a single block, still generally slow, presents a static harmony around a persistent note, B flat (the fundamental of the entire piece), bulging and deflating in diverse registers. One might think of the movement as a gigantic bell, within which various activities are proceeding – notably, a solo for muted trumpet. Normally applied to a verse of a poem or song, the word “strophe” originally meant a “turning” – a turning, in this case, within the larger turning, a turning from the sacred place to the sacred person: Circe.

A demigod-enchantress, Circe lived on an island, and her movement here, made of slow swells and filigree detail, could be heard as sea music – in contrast with the stone music of “Temenos”, and of almost the same length. Alternatively, the movement could be understood as a sequence of spells, of which Circe was a formidable wielder. (Another meaning of pharmakeia is “the use of spells”.) Early on comes a softly luminous passage in which the upper strings keep sounding a chord of G minor. Later the trumpet, now unmuted, is again stirring within static harmony, stepping upwards over and over. Further on yet a resonant low fifth from tuba and horn punctuates the music, and an echo of it returns in the close.

The fifth is there again, on cello and bass, as the second “strophe” gets going, soon joined by the G minor harmony of the violins and viola, all around an urging trombone line. These features are left behind as the layers increase, until the music settles on revolving repetitions. At this point, in the biggest circle of all, “Temenos” could start again.

Paul Griffiths

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London Sinfonietta Players

Karen Jones flute/piccolo
Gareth Hulse oboe/cor anglais
Mark van de Wiel clarinet/bass
Jonathan Parkin contrabass clarinet
Jonathan Davies bassoon/contrabassoon
Zoë Tweed horn
Christian Barraclough trumpet
Byron Fulcher trombone
Ben Thomson tuba
Jonathan Morton violin 1
Hilaryjane Parker violin 2
Paul Silverthorne viola
Tim Gill cello
Enno Senft double bass
Elizabeth Burley piano/organ
Clíodna Shanahan piano/organ
David Hockings percussion

Hal Hutchison stage manager
Lesley Wynne orchestral personnel manager

Film

Helen Mansfield video director
Tony Simpson lighting design
Anna Charlton script supervisor
Jonathan Wix score reader
Adam Flynn film editing
Andrew Wyard vision mixer
Darren Poole camera operator
Giles Pritchard camera operator
Dave Mortlock camera operator
Sarah Hill camera operator
Mick Shenton production manager
Andy Hogan technical supervisor
Dan Halford sound engineer
Naomi Jackson sound technician
Lennie O'Dwyer stage technician
Kerri-Anne Hughes stage technician
Cressy Klaces lighting desk programmer

Andrew Burke executive producer

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