Milarepa - sculpture from central Tibet
Milarepa - sculpture from central Tibet
Milarepa in the cave of Horse Tooth White Rock
TEMPO magazine, April 2004
Horse Tooth White Rock
‘The presence of colour’
. . . By far the most substantial work written in the US was the ‘extended tone-poem’ for orchestra Horse Tooth White Rock.
Vir’s music, even when ostensibly non-theatrical, always has an extra-musical – narrative or dramatic – inspiration. In this case the work was prompted by an exhibition of Tibetan art at the Royal Academy in London in 1992, and in particular a series of biographical paintings of the eleventh-century mystic Milarepa. In these, Milarepa sits in meditation surrounded by depictions of key events from his life, including a fiery revenge on his wicked uncle and aunt, and his spiritual education and eventual enlightenment under the guidance of his guru, Marpa.
Horse Tooth White Rock is as striking and colourful as these early nineteenth-century pictures on which it is based; not strictly programmatic, the music ‘reflects upon important themes’ in Milarepa’s extraordinary life. The music has a similar boldness of line and proportion: a series of sharply-defined musical sections unfold around the ubiquitous presence of the character of Milarepa at the music’s heart. The discourse is at times dense – such as the ‘orchestral thunderbolt’ which starts the piece – and deploys the characteristic Vir battery of percussion; but the strings also play a more important role, especially at moments of repose, supplying sumptuous harmonies not heard in the double-bill, with its single strings.
In the second movement a series of solos emerge from the ensemble. First an impassioned and dissonant viola solo over sustained string chords, in Vir’s characteristic disjunct melodic style. This evolves into a stratospheric violin tune before the tranquil dialogue for cor anglais and cello which ends the piece. This evokes the Peacock from Broken Strings, over fragile string chords depicting Milarepa’s farewell from his family, as he begins his journey towards enlightenment.
(From "Magical Theatres, The Music of Param Vir", by Bernard Hughes, published in TEMPO April 2004, Cambridge University Press. Used by permission.)