FIVE WAYS OF LOOKING AT FIRE IN THE DARK

A piece from Breath Cycle - our project with people with cystic fibrosis.

Words: David James Brock

Music: Gareth Williams

1.

Can I start as thunder? Can I shout at fire?

Rumble. Rumble. Flicker. Flicker.

I will sing my voice to the sky, and then higher,

like a spark dancing off the flame.

Exhale.

2.

I rely on what I hear when only sound surrounds me.

I will build a house. I will show you to a window.

Look. Listen. Every sound moves the flame.

Exhale.

3. 

Can I sing a flame? Can I be a dragon?

Roar and roar and burn and blaze.

I will fly my voice to the sky, and watch it soar—

the sound is the sun at dawn.

Exhale.

4.

The dark might make us children, but oh it binds.

Hear us laugh across the room. Hear us sigh.

Surprise fills our lives, like stars in the skies,

and we make our own constellations. 

Exhale.

5.

Can I see your face? There’s that little glow.

I want your breath revealed by what it moves.

And now I know, now I know, now I know.

Five Ways Of Looking At Fire In The Dark (from Breath Cycle)

A piece from Breath Cycle - our project with people with cystic fibrosis.
Words: David Brock
Music: Gareth Williams

For three singers, piano, and a wine glass

Until the Glass Shatters

1.

Other like me online—

pictures, faces,

but it’s not the same.

In my room,

separation is the easiest

way to be alone.

 

On days like these, my breath

is not the only thing to leave.

 

Take me from this room,

put breath back in me,

and I will shatter these walls

when my lungs arrive.

I will break this glass

when my new voice collides.

 

2.

I am sleeping.

I am dreaming.

Breathe out the old,

breathe in the new.

 

I can’t feel the cuts and stitches,

beeps and doctors disappear.

A dream of drowning gives way

to the wind and the sky.

 

Only in dreams have I ever

felt this breeze.

Breathe out the old,

breathe in the new.

 

3.

Breathe out with the old,

in with the new.

 

I will raise my voice

and break this glass.

 

I will leave this room

and shatter these walls.

 

A deep breath in,

a deep breath out

 

A deep breath in,

a deep breath out

 

A deep breath in,

a deep breath out.

 

The glass shatters.

Until The Glass Shatters (from Breath Cycle)

This is a demo track for the "Songs From The Last Page" Project.  I have been using the final lines of novels and stories as jumping off points to create new songs for myself to sing at piano, accompanied by violin and cello.
The lyrics of this song are taken from the last page of the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. No words added, none taken away...

The Song From The Last Page of Ulysses

I watched Dennis Potter give a television interview in 1994. I didn’t know anything about him and I don’t know why I kept watching. It frightened me because he was drinking morphine and talking about his imminent death. I had never seen anyone talk about their death like that, and that sadness, coupled with the joy of a life well lived, meant I could never really shake it off. Years later, I read the transcript of the interview, and I realised that he said amazing things. About the present tense. For the last ten years, I’ve been wanting to hear someone sing some of those amazing things.

III. The Blossom 

Extract from Dennis Potter's last interview:
Below my window in Ross, when I'm working in Ross, for example, there at this season, the blossom is out in full now, there in the west early. It's a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it's white, and looking at it, instead of saying "Oh that's nice blossom" ... last week looking at it through the window when I'm writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There's no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance ... not that I'm interested in reassuring people - bugger that. The fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.

Performed by soprano Catrin Aur, with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. Conducted by James Burton.

The Song, the Stars, the Blossom. Movement III. The Blossom.

In 1990, George Wylie the artist build a huge paper boat and it floated into New York. This is a song inspired by that day.

George Wyllie's Paper Boat

Fields of Light

As a child I would rise unhappily on cold school mornings, usually the last one up in the house.  My father, awake for some time before me, would have already fed and watered the animals on our little farm. 
I have this memory.  Of going into the kitchen one morning. The sun was slowly rising, and I saw my father, smoking his pipe, looking out the window at the winter dawn.
At that time of life, I saw no value in sun rises, or indeed no worth in anything that happened before lunchtime.  But now, I realise that it truly must be something.
To stop and watch the morning light breaking across your own little domain.

In Fields of Light, I tried to create the stillness of a single memory. To open it up, show some of the joy hidden within it, and then to carefully close it again.  I made it the way my younger self used to make pieces for orchestras. Press a note on my piano, and imagine it held by the violins. Press another and hear the violas.  Then the cellos, the trumpets, the flutes and so on…

Performed by the BBC SSO November 2015 at City Halls, Glasgow

Fields Of Light

Blush  - for Trio Gaspard

Performed live at Flat Two Right by the composer

We Got Old

This song is an exercise in vulnerability. Everything is stripped back and exposed, and the lyrics are four sentences:
I feel you’re near.
I feel you’re here.
I know you care.
I know you’re there.

Voice and Piano: Gareth Williams, Trumpet in Bb: Bede Williams, Violin 1: Stewart Webster, Violin 2: Gillian Risi, Viola: Emma Connell-Smith, Cello: John Davidson.

Tenderhooks

Extract from 'Nightfall Suite' for strings

From the Nightfall Suite

Little Broom

A short feature on Seavaigers by Sally Beamish  - made for Classics Unwrapped on BBC Radio Scotland.

Discussing Seavaigers by Sally Beamish on Future Classics

A short feature on Noncerto No.31 by Richard Ayres  - made for Classics Unwrapped on BBC Radio Scotland.

Discussing Noncerto No.31 by Richard Ayres on Future Classics

I’m a composer and singer-songwriter living in Edinburgh. I make work that ranges from opera, music theatre and song, to chamber and orchestral music.  I lecture at Edinburgh College of Art, specialising in composition and song writing, whilst making bespoke work for my own voice, and for the voices of others- who range from international opera singers to people struggling with Long Covid. More here - https://www.scottishopera.org.uk/join-in/breath-cycle/the-covid-composers-songbook/

My stage works are often site-responsive, happening in lighthouses, distilleries, nuclear bunkers, and libraries. I create award winning commissions for companies such as Scottish Opera, Tapestry Opera, National Theatre of Scotland, Ulster Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Music Scotland. 

My new album, Songs from the Last Page, written for myself on vocals and piano, with violin and cello, will be released on 11th August 2023.

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