Published
1-10-2024
Type of Work
Creative Work - Music
Abstract
Songs for Dead Sailors is a psychological exploration of love and loss in the era of tall ships; a song cycle about leaving a home and loved ones, to journey with no promise of a return. The work was scored for a sextet of improvising musicians and reflects my interest in the creative process and my experiences teaching creative practice research. I consider my personal musical language to be a kind of novel amalgam of my influences, and so from the start I conducted a kind of archeology of influences, documenting my own musical choices in relation to the works that influenced me. This resulted in a highly intertextual composition that draws on philosophy, psychology and other artists’ investigations of sea life, loss, tragedy and suicide. I have been transparent in the way that I engage with those sources, directly or indirectly referencing them in the music and lyrics, a process that has enabled me to come to a fuller understanding of my own unique style as a composer.
The work is structured as twelve separate movements, however, musical themes are explored across the work: the first melody in the score recurs in nearly every movement; and the first movement itself is heard as a ghostly (intervallic) inversion in the 7th movement (when the protagonist begins to reflect on the dark depths below the surface of the sea). This thematic recurrence and layering is something I have explored since “able” (1999), but not in combination with a lyrical text nor in a work of this scale.
Notes
1. 1x pdf
2. The work can be heard at this url:
https://tobywren1.bandcamp.com/album/songs-for-dead-sailors ;
and, purchased at this url: https://www.tobywren.com/products-1
3. A reference list is provided within the document.
Citation
Wren, T. (2024). Songs for dead sailors [Music score]. Creo.