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Jonathan Harvey’s Bhakti at Indiana University

Nov. 29, 2011

Jonathan Harvey’s <em>Bhakti</em> at Indiana University

On December 1, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble performs Jonathan Harvey’s Bhakti, conducted by David Dzubay. Originally commissioned by IRCAM and premiered in March of 1982, Bhakti is a 50-minute chamber work and was premiered in Paris by Denis Cohen leading the Ensemble InterContemporain. The Wire magazine (UK) hails the work, “with its quicksilver modulations seamlessly integrating taped sounds with acoustic instruments. [Bhakti] stands as one of Harvey’s finest achievements.”

Composed in 12 short movements, Bhakti is scored for 15 players and live electronics (tape or CD Rom). It is structured in 36 subsections, with each subsection defined by a certain number of instruments playing a certain pitch cell. As there are only 12 types of subsection, each one occurs (with variation) three times, leading to repetitions throughout the work. The ear is unconsciously attracted to hear the harmony not as dissonant over a fundamental bass but as floating free from bass functions and yet rigorously controlled. The tape is composed largely of sounds drawn from the instrumental ensemble transformed and mixed by computer and has many functions: that of dialogue, transformation, memory, anticipation, ‘simultaneous translation’ and of reaching beyond the instrumental scale to a more universal dimension. A quotation from the Rig-Veda is appended at the end of each movement. These Sanskrit hymns were written some four thousand years ago and, as Harvey explains, "they are keys to a transcendent consciousness."

For more details on the program, visit: www.indiana.edu.

Learn more about Jonathan Harvey and his music at: www.fabermusic.com.

Jonathan Harvey
Bhakti (1982)
for chamber ensemble and electronics (tape or CD Rom)
fl(pic).ob(ca).cl(Ebcl).bcl-hn.tpt(ptpt).trbn-2perc-pno(glsp)-harp-str
50'

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