Music for the End of Time
(For trombone, video, and quadraphonic surround sound.)
Table of Contents
1. General Description
2. PDF Score
3. Downloadable practice CD
4. Complete Video
5. A Short YouTube Trailer
6. Six video clips showing the score
7. A complete video of the work showing the score
8. Order Materials
9. Program Notes
1. General Description
“Music for the End of
Time” is a 52-minute work for trombone, video and quadraphonic electronics
based on the Book of Revelation. Premiere: Montreal, McGill University, March 1998. The
version with optional video was premiered in our Taos studio in September, 2007.
Abbie
Conant, trombone; Norbert Bach, digital stills; William Osborne, music and
video. The work is in
in six movements:
I. A Door Was Opened In Heaven
II. The Sea of Glass
III. The Four Horsemen
IV. As It Were of a Trumpet Talking
V. The White Beast
VI. A Woman Clothed With the Sun
2. PDF Score
To download the PDF score click here. (The score is pixelated on screen, but prints beautifully.)
3. Dowloadable Practice CD of the accompaniment
To download a stereo wave file for practicing Music for the End of Time right click on the link below and click "SAVE TARGET AS..." or "Save link as."
(Please note that the work should be performed with quadraphonic surround sound. The stereo CD is just for practice. Contact us for the necessary files at william@osborne-conant.org .)
4. The Complete Video
6. A video of six short clips with the score
7. A Video of the complete work with the score
For full sharpness, HD at 720p is necessary.
8. Program Notes
Music
for the End of Time
was part of Abbie Conant’s
project, entitled "The Wired Goddess and her Trombone.” Her goal was to
work with composers to create compositions for computer and trombone
based on the theme of the Goddess. She
premiered 14 work during this project.
The score for
Music
for the End of Time was completed in 1998 and premiered at McGill
University the same year. The
optional video version was
completed in 2007 and premiered in Taos, NM.
This is one of several large scale, music theater or multi-media
works William has completed for Abbie.
Our goal has been to explore new dimensions of performance art
and create substantial, meaningful works for the trombone.
Apocalyptic visions have long helped humans appreciate the extreme limitation of our existential condition in relation to the boundless majesty of the universe. We also explore the cycles of ecstasy, revolution, destruction and lament that characterize transcendentalism . These polarities inform the arrangement of the movements in “Music for the End of Time,” and shape their cycles of light/darkness, drama/reflection, ecstasy/remorse.
Ultimately, the most meaningful understandings of the apocalyptic have little to do with destruction, but with vanquishing our own human limitations. Through the apocalyptic, we transcend not so much the universe, as our own self. We learn that in the infinite expanse of this world, our human passions are often the sheerest folly, and that the truest path to justice is through forgiveness, compassion and love. Perhaps that understanding is what St. John hoped to symbolize in his vision of "The Woman Clothed with the Sun." The ultimate value of transcendental experience might be that it shows us, in the sense of the Goddess, that nothing is more precious or transcendent that the simple beauty of life itself.
These are the movements and the verses they are based upon:
I. A Door Was Opened in Heaven,
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. (Rev. 4:1.)
II. The Sea of Glass
And before the throne was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. (Rev. 4.6)
III. The Four Horsemen
And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. (Rev. 9:17)
IV. As It Were A Trumpet Talking
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. (Rev. 4:1.)
V. The White Beast
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. (Rev. 6:8)
VI. A Woman Clothed With the Sun
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. (Rev. 12:1)
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