Awakenings

FOR ORCHESTRA

Inspired by Dr. Oliver Sacks' book "Awakenings"

Text by Oliver Sacks

Choreographed by Aletta Collins

Commissioned for Rambert Dance Company by Daniel Katz Limited

 

Details

  • Premiere: September 22, 2010; Salford, The Lowry (UK); Rambert Dance Company

    Instrumentation: 1(pic.,alf).1(ca).1(bcl).1-hn.tp-1perc(timp,b.d, sd,concert toms, tam-t,cym,piatti,xyl,mar,tub bells,glsp,ratchet,whip)-hp.pno-str(2.1.1.1.1)

    Duration: 23'

    Publisher: Schott Helicon Music Corporation (BMI)

 

Composer’s Note

In composing Awakenings, I was inspired by the exquisite art and stunning imagery of Oliver Sacks' prose, and above all by the lives of the uniquely tragic patients he writes about. His book, "Awakenings", written in the form of a series of case studies and footnotes, suggested the musical structure and characteristics of the score. While not specifically programmatic, I hope that the music may express some understanding of the patients as well as the sense of nostalgia, anger and longing they felt for their stolen past.

Awakenings opens with 12 'frozen' chords of varying volumes - materializing as if dropped into a dark, timeless, "unmusicked" silence. The ensuing music can be heard as an evolution and elaboration of these chords. Like sonic 'statues' they serve as guideposts appearing, reappearing, generating, commenting upon and melding into the ongoing polyphony. Scored for a chamber orchestra of 15 musicians, Awakenings has seven movements, three interludes and numerous fragments and notated silences all played without pause.

Imagining the inner worlds of the newly-awakened was one of the great challenges and joys that Aletta and I experienced in our collaboration. Dr. Sacks describes patients who, when awakened, were sometimes afflicted with often bizarre Tourettes-like tics. One of them, Hester Y, displayed multiple simultaneous but independent tics, which gave the impression of a complex polyphony; Sacks describes her tics as "of many unrelated tempi and melodies proceeding independently having distinctive styles and rhythms or movements-like a clockshop gone mad". Before being treated with L-Dopa, another patient, Miss D. could respond to one stimulus alone. Only music could propel her through space. "As I am unmusicked, I must be remusicked," she said. When “unmusicked” she felt "like a still photo, a frozen frame." When “remusicked” she could "dance out of the frame" and move freely.

— Tobias Picker

 

Excerpt

 

Press

  • “The heart of the evening is [Awakenings]… with a heartfelt score by Tobias Picker.”

  • “… a powerful piece…”

    “… especially moving…”

  • “… a must-see masterpiece…”

  • “Picker's score, counterposing jagged, stuttering chords with a discursive, melodic freedom is very persuasive.”

  • “Picker’s score has soulful emotion mixed with strident eerie phrases.”

  • “Tobias Picker's extraordinary polyphonic score is fluid, captivating and strangely moving.”

  • “… a seethingly impulsive score…”

    “… simply one of the finest works in the current repertoire…”

    “… the music is as nuanced and challenging as the choreography: to have it powering out live, from the pit, adds a real crackle of intensity.”

  • “… nothing disturbing and moving…”

  • “Picker's score was at times edgy and convulsive, at others lyrical and graceful in a subtle and beautifully nuanced piece.”