Leo Chadburn, Five Loops for the Bathyscaphe
Instrumentation
Piano Trio (violin, cello, piano) and pre-recorded voices.
Duration: 10 minutes | Written: 2018 | Commissioned by The Britten Sinfonia
Programme Note
On 23 January 1960, oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh journeyed to the deepest known part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, reaching the ocean floor nearly eleven kilometres down. Their vessel for the five-hour descent was the Bathyscaphe Trieste, a tiny sphere with just enough room for the two men inside, built to withstand the enormous pressure of the water, mounted beneath a huge float chamber filled with petrol for buoyancy, and iron pellets for ballast.
The austerity of the music is intended to be analogous to the inhospitableness of the deep ocean, where sunlight is unable to penetrate and the temperature approaches freezing point. The recorded voiceovers (by actor Gemma Saunders and myself) act as timekeepers, speaking numbers, fragments of scientific text, the names of deep-sea creatures and lines derived from Piccard's poetic recollections of the experience.
Live Performances
- Britten Sinfonia, 23 January 2018, West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
- Britten Sinfonia, 24 January 2018, Wigmore Hall, London
- Britten Sinfonia, 26 January 2018, St Andrew's Hall, Norwich
- Philip Chiu (piano), Jessy Je Young Kim (violin), Braden McConnell (cello), 24 July 2021, Walter Hall, Toronto
- Eliza McCarthy (piano), David Alberman (violin), Laure Le Dantec (cello), 13 November 2021, LSO St Luke's, London
Recording
Appears on the album Slower / Talker, performed by Mira Benjamin (violin), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello) and Kerry Yong (piano).
