Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
Royal Northern College of Music
The Lovelace Trilogy
‘The Lovelace Trilogy’, (coined by Axel Petri-Preis in his article ‘Emily Howard’s Lovelace Trilogy’, Seiltanz, 2012) is a connected group of three works linked by explorations of the inner world of Ada Lovelace, pioneering mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron. Ada sketches, a dramatic scena for mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet and percussion, explores a musical solution to a computation involving an exponential function as solved in the hypothetical 1842 Analytical Engine. The structure of Mesmerism is informed by this calculation, the solo piano ‘mesmerising’ the orchestra (Ada dabbled in mesmerism). Calculus of the Nervous System takes as its musical starting point Ada’s wish to develop a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thought, and nerves to feelings. It was conceived as a sequence of memories: musical ideas evolved from the cross-fertilisation of sources including the Mesmerism memory and music originating in Ada sketches. Each memory is also associated with a line from Geoffrey Hill’s poems, 'Clavics'. The resultant structure is a neural network with its roots in strictly-engineered time, pitch and rhythmic calculations, using values derived from one source (an exponential equation and its derivative), subsequently muddled and reordered by chance processes.
Ada sketches: commissioned by Soundings Ensemble. World première, 12 May 2011, Austrian Cultural Forum, London. European première: 10 November 2011, Wien Modern, Casino Baumgarten, Vienna; 26 November 2011, Czech Museum of Music, Prague. Recording: Platypus Ensemble (Col-Legno, 2013). Mesmerism: commissioned by PRS for Music Foundation for the Diamond Jubilee. Première: 8 October 2011, Pacific Road Venue, Birkenhead, Alexandra Dariescu (piano), Liverpool Mozart Orchestra, Mark Heron, conductor. Calculus of the Nervous System: commissioned by Wien Modern. World première: 20 November 2011, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, James MacMillan, conductor (live broadcast). UK première: 21 August 2012, BBC Proms, CBSO, Andris Nelsons, conductor (live broadcast).
