I have heard the word "innovative" used about the
 music Libera sing. However, when I hear it (and
 enjoy it, mark you) two other words spring to mind,
 "derivative" and "repetitive". These words are often
 used in a derisory sense but I wish no such
 connotation to be attached to them here. Perhaps the
 familiarity of derivative music is what makes it so
 popular, and there is also a safety factor involved
 because the listener knows they are not going to get
 a "nasty" surprise. Rutter, in interview, said
 something
 along these lines when asked why he did not write
 more challenging (my word) music. He said that his
 wife had suggested the same thing, but that those
 who commissioned him to write a piece for them
 had certain expectations, based on what they knew
 and liked. Had they wanted something different they
 would have gone to another composer. Hmmm.
 Repetition, of course, ensures the music will be
 remembered, and if what we hear is pleasant, we
 like to hear it again (and, in some cases, again and
 again and again).
 
 In one of the Libera songs we hear whispering. I
 wondered why this was used. Is it to suggest a kind
 of hushed awe? Be still in the presence of one who
 is mightier than you - or possibly more dangerous.
 Don't draw attention to yourself. When a puffin
 passes a predatory gull he lowers his head and
 scuttles by as inconspicuously as possible. Even as
 I listened my mind began to drift to Ken Loach's
 film of Barry Hine's "Kes", the story of a boy's
 relationship with a kestrel. I quote from the script,
 edited to keep to the point. Mr. Farthing, Billy's
 teacher, is sitting with Billy in the kestrel's shed.
 
 Farthing: When it's flying there's something about it
 makes you feel strange.
 
 Billy: Is it cos everything goes quiet
 
 Farthing: Have you noticed how quietly we're
 speaking? As if we're frightened to raise our voices -
 a bit like shouting in church.
 
 Billy: Is it because they're nervous.
 
 Farthing: Oh no! It is more than that. It's
 instinctive.
 It's a sort of respect.
 
 Clearly in the case of a raptor, if you are the prey,
 then respect it pretty well indistinguishable from a
 prudence born of fear. Presumably a royal personage,
 whether real or imagined would have the same effect.
 I still whisper in cathedrals because I deem it to be
 polite and respectful of those who seek peace. Many
 tourists do not. St Paul's, in London, can be as noisy
 as Victoria Station in the rush hour.
 
 So, is the Libera whispering a musical device, and a
 legitimate one, or a recognised one, to suggest awe?
 
 I turn now to another device which I think is known as
 a suspension. As I understand it, a note from one
 chord is kept going into the next, producing a
 discord. In the device I am considering this resolves
 itself into a new chord. There are lots of them in
 track 3 on the Libera CD. Why do we have a subclass of
 chords called discords? What has caused many to
 consider this subclass as being in some way unpleasant
 or unresolved, so that it can be used in this Libera
 piece to create a series of tensions and relaxations
 as,over and over again, discords are resolved into
 "harmonious" chords? Lotti, in his several settings of
 the "Crucifixus" used this in the same way - some
 might say, over-used it. Does it in some way suggest
 pain followed by relief? Before we had chords and
 discords we could not have had suspensions so,
 presumably, they were not a factor in our evolution,
 yet people treat this device as an obviously natural
 thing. Is it? How many suspensions can one place one
 after the other before the effect palls? At one point
 in the piece a series of these suspensions rises and
 then falls again. Supposing, were it possible to do so
 vocally, they went on getting higher and higher, up
 beyond the limits of human hearing, would this be a
 pleasant experience, I wonder?
 
 The last question brings me to another point which
 is as much linguistic as musical - high notes, in fact
 the entire notion of "high" and all that is associated
 with it. Some religious beliefs have a state of being
 or place which, for the purposes of this e-mail,I
 shall call "heaven". In the Christian religion, which
 has had an enormous influence on our western music,
 heaven was thought to be somewhere above, hence "up in
 heaven", "ascending to heaven", etc. When we came to
 understand "up" and "down" as being a matter of the
 gravitational effect, then a "heaven above" no longer
 made any sense as a specific
 direction for, obviously, my Australian friend's "up"
 is my down. Nevertheless, we continue to equate height
 or "upwardness" with heaven and goodness. The
 voices we enjoy (on VOA) are high and are frequently
 described as "heavenly". People tend not to say that
 Willard White has a heavenly voice - though I think
 he has.
 
 Boys sing with high voices, but why do we say their
 notes are "high"? We use the term a "higher frequency"
 to describe the compression waves which we translate
 into sound, yet "greater frequency" would do. Is this
 the only reason their notes are said to be high? Has
 it anything to do with the fact that they are placed
 above the others on the musical page - at least when
 it is held vertically - or is this done because they
 are considered higher? I realise that it is merely
 convention but it does lead to associations which are
 not really valid. If a film director asked for "angel
 voices" on his soundtrack, it is unlikely that he
 would expect Tuvan throat-singers or chanting Tibetan
 monks but why not?
 
 Then, as mentioned before, "high" has this connotation
 of goodness. Is this merely because of our old
 "heaven is up there" belief? A bad person is said to
 be a "lowdown" whatever, and we fall into the "depths
 of despair". Even when we say that someone exhibits
 the height of bad manners we are suggesting that they
 are the "winners" in the bad manners competition.
 
 A good choir can "raise" our spirits. People
 attempting to "improve" their lives are often said to
 be "upwardly" mobile. In England, or rather Ireland,
 the hymnodist, Mrs Alexander wrote of the "rich man in
 his castle and the poor man at his gate" that "God
 made them high and lowly". We may think we have left
 this behind but it seems to me that such words as
 success, winner, majesty, holiness, goodness, become
 linked by this word "high".
 
 When I think on these things, I am reminded of Dory
 Previn's song, the first two stanzas of which are:
 
 i have flown to star-stained heights
 on bent and battered wings
 in search of mythical kings
 sure that everything of worth
 is in the sky and not the earth
 and i never learned to make my way
 down where the iguanas play
 
 i have ridden comet tails
 in search of magic rings
 to conjure mythical kings
 singing scraps of angel-song
 high is right and low is wrong
 i never taught myself to give
 down where the iguanas live
 
 So Libera's music now has me back in the 1970s
 thinking on Ms Previn - not something Mr Prizeman
 might have predicted.
 
 Over years of listening to music I have noticed that
 repeated notes in certain positions, particularly at
 the end of a phrase, and following a lower note, have
 a pleasant effect on my emotional state - a nostalgic
 feeling. This is apparent, for example, in three out
 of four lines of each verse of "When a knight won his
 spurs". Is this a recognised device or is it caused,
 perhaps, by a happy connection with some long-
 forgotten music of only my childhood?
 
 Do composers have an arsenal of devices which are
 known to cause certain emotional responses? How
 free are they to experiment? The most obvious one
 is the choice of major or minor key. I am told that
 certain falling intervals are known to have a specific
 effect, but did some loved piece of music lead to this
 effect being associated with it or would the effect
 have been there anyway. An example might
 be Nimrod from the Enigma variations by Elgar.
 
 When I listen to "I vow to thee my country", it
 becomes associated with noble sacrifice, and the
 music seems to match this perfectly, yet its origins
 seem totally unrelated to patriotic sentiment.
 Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity, does not appear to be
 a likely provenance for such a song / hymn. Was Cecil
 Spring-Rice, who wrote the words, inspired to
 do so by something inherently "noble" in the music
 or has the music acquired nobility because of his
 words? If the former, can the stratagems used to
 suggest this nobility this be analysed, or is this
 part of the mystery of composition?
 
 In the track called Lament, there is a deep "drone",
 for want of a better word - a long sustained chord
 beneath the melodies. What does this drone say to
 us? Is it offering security - long-term support,
 perhaps? Many religious communities seem to use
 such a drone in their rituals. Do composers employ
 this device because of its long history of use in this
 way, or is it providing something much more basic
 which explains its use?
 
 Should I allow music to take over my thinking in
 these ways or should I just accept it without
 thinking? Would knowing how music succeeds in causing
 an emotional response give me a greater understanding
 of and respect for the art and craft of the composer?
 What does a composer expect, or hope for, from his
 or her audience?
 
 I wander, I know, but I wonder as I wander.