Gordon Kerry (born 1961)

Kindled Skies for soprano and orchestra

Soprano: Merlyn Quaife

It has been a great privilege to have worked with Merlyn Quaife over the last ten years: in 1993 she created the title role in my opera Medea (70 minutes of extremely passionate intensity which she has performed widely since), and in 2000 sang the solo part in my Mass of Christ the King. I was delighted therefore to have an opportunity to write another major work for her: Kindled Skies shares its dedication between Merlyn Quaife and David Garrett, TSO’s artistic administrator. It was composed with financial assistance from the Australia Council through a Music Fund Fellowship (1999-2001).

Most major religions acknowledge (if only, perversely, by repression) the correspondence between erotic and spiritual ecstasy. There is, for instance, the Tantric tradition in Hinduism and Buddhism, the writings of mystics like Rumi or St John of the Cross, and the Song of Songs, which despite no mention of God or religion, was included in the Hebrew scriptures. The Christian hierarchy subsequently saw in it an allegory for the relationship between Christ and the church. There is, however, the possibility that it is merely a damn good piece of erotic poetry: certainly, its imagery is frequently quite explicit, almost Freudian – as in the passage where the Bride sings of her lover’s hand, dripping with myrrh on the lock of her door.

In the passage set here, the Bride is kept awake by her longing for the Bridegroom, expressed musically by a restless rhythmic motif and insistently repeated soft chords from muted trumpets (I slept, but my heart was awake…). Where the Bridegroom speaks, the texture becomes static but lush, and the vocal line is coloured by the unison addition of oboe and trumpet. The Bride hears him knocking (I arose…), but he has gone before she reaches the door: downcast, she calls for him to return before the dawn. At this point she sings her description of her lover in terms that can only be called godlike (My beloved is radiant…): the imagery stresses bright, precious, incorruptible materials like ivory and gold; the music responds with transparent scoring and simple diatonic harmony.

From here it was a relatively short step to the description of Krishna’s theophany in the Bhagavad Gita. This takes place just before a great battle, where the god Krishna, in the form of a charioteer, is instructing the warrior Arjuna in the metaphysics of karma and destiny. Arjuna asks to see Krishna as he really is. The god obliges, revealing himself as encompassing the whole universe, and (in the term made notorious after the first successful nuclear test) ‘brighter than a thousand suns’ (The great lord…). There is a hint of martial music, and cowbells to remind us of another important aspect of Krishna, as well as a contrastingly delicate texture associated with Krishna’s robes and fragrance. The music revisits the ‘I arose’ section and then the ‘My beloved is radiant’ to suggest the brightness of Krishna’s appearance. A spacious chord containing all twelve notes of the chromatic scale resolves onto a single note symbolises Krishna’s being all in all.

For Hart Crane (1899-1932) the sea was a powerful symbol for love: dangerous, but offering an intimation of eternity (I had come all the way here from the sea / Yet met the wave again between your arms). For Crane, as for the Bride, love offers a glimpse of heaven (our days pass sunward. / We have walked the kindled skies) which is underlined by a further version of the ‘radiant beloved’ music at this point. The dove, of course, is a classic Western symbol; Krishna, interestingly, is often described as accompanied by bees.

Finally, the great Sufi poet Rumi reminds us that to experience eternity is to relinquish the world (Lovers, it is time to set out from the world). As at the beginning of the piece, it is night again – the music for the stars recalls Krishna’s garments from the second section. Those of us asleep might miss the moment. I take the ‘wondrous people’ of the last line to be those who are somehow blessed: at rest, in paradise, enlightened, in love…