The Last Thing

2023
25 mins
3.(II=picc,III=picc&a.flt).2.3(III=bcl)2(II=cbn)-4.2.3.0-
perc.(3):
I=mar/t.bells/SD/2tri;
II=glspl/BD/lge susp.cym;
III=xyl/SD/2susp.cym-
hrp-clsta-sop solo-strings

Premiere: 3 & 4 May 2024
Perth Concert Hall
West Australian Symphony Orchestra
Sara Macliver, soprano
Alpesh Chauhan, conductor

Programme Note

The Last Thing is a set of three songs for soprano and orchestra with text by Irish poet and playwright, Paula Meehan (b.1955). The first poem I read of hers was Child Burial - a piercing and incredibly direct poem on losing a child. My initial reaction was that there would be no way I could write music for it. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realised that I could engage with the power of her words musically. After many conversations with colleagues and friends, I decided to go for it. I then read through many other Meehan poems and found Mother and The Last Thing. The three poems are all connected as they portray the loss of loved ones.
The first song The Last Thing describes the demise of a father and the last thing he utters. The imagery here is palpable as he “slipped below the horizon of his morphine dream”. Then there is “the moon in the hospice rigging” and “wingéd creatures” that inspired in me a kind of Don Quixote character. The music opens with a pseudo-heroic line in the piccolo and violins that fans out across the orchestra. After a dream-like delivery of the text featuring mallet percussion, harp and celesta, the song concludes with a return of the opening material. Only this time the music is chopped up into fragments as a failingly heroic fanfare.
The second song Mother is a fierce and spiteful take on a poisoned relationship between child and deceased mother – “mother you devourer”, “you chewed me up, you spat me out”. The music races along with first and second violins in close canon creating a ratcheting shimmer beneath the voice. This is supported by an unrelenting pulse in the percussion and harmonic tones in harp, cellos, and bells. In the final verse of the poem the text climactically turns on its head with the line “mother I stand over your grave…and I weep”. The music too flips, becoming sweeping and despairing.
The third and final song is Child Burial – and incredibly difficult read due to the subject matter, yet so rich in its language, imagery, and power. “No light can reach you and teach you…”. The song opens with a lament in solo cello before funereal music appears in the strings. The music is very restrained at first, slowly unravelling over the course of the song. The material that occurs in the solo cello transforms into the climax of the work – slow pulsing chords in the strings and rhythmic ‘cries’ in the brass. A final utterance by the cello ushers in two sombre trombones, tolling harp and celesta, followed by strings that rise higher and higher into the unknown.
Texts used by kind permission of Paula Meehan – Dedalus Press
This work was commissioned for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra by Geoff Stearn.
I am extremely grateful to both Paula Meehan for her inspiring words and imagery and Geoff Stearn for his financial support.

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