Barry Truax : Sequence of Earlier Heaven

SEQUENCE OF EARLIER HEAVEN (1998)
for eight digital soundtracks

The title refers to the pattern of trigrams in the I Ching known as the Primal Arrangement, based on pairs of opposites, such as Heaven and Earth, Wind and Thunder, Water and Fire, Mountain and Lake. In the musical work, this progression takes place in 8 sections, each ninety seconds in length, where each pair of four channels depicts the energy generated by these oppositions. When diffused through speakers arranged in a cube, the upper and lower sets of speakers reflect this relationship. The work is the complement to the Sequence of Later Heaven (1993) which depicts the trigrams as a periodic cycle.
The work, as with its counterpart, is entirely based on musical instruments found in Pacific Rim cultures, including the Javanese gamelan gongs, the Philippine patangok, the khaen from South-East Asia, the Korean kayageum, the Chinese guzheng and tam-tam, Japanese meditation bells, bamboo brushes, the rosewood keyed marimba from Central America, the Peruvian bombo and box drum, and the Chilean rainstick. These sounds are mixed together to form chords whose complex spectra become more apparent when the sounds are digitally resonated and/or stretched in time.

The composer is grateful to Sal Ferreras, Russell Hartenberger and Randy Raine-Reusch who provided the source material for this work, along with the Simon Fraser University gamelan, Kyai Madu Sari (The Venerable Essence of Honey). The work was commissioned with the assistance of the Canada Council by ACREQ.

01 East Wind – 1981 (11:14)
02 Nightwatch – 1982 (13:37)
03 Wave Edge – 1983 (9:27)
04 Solar Ellipse -1984-85 (10:55)

Total time 45:12
LP released on Cambridge Street Records, Canada, 1985

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