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This Portfolio of Compositions consists of eight scores, recordings on CD and commentary on my creative process. The pieces are: (1) Stone Structures, for cello and piano; (2) The Path of the Thousand Doors, for three snare drums; (3) Four Poems for Guitar, for guitar solo; (4) Night View, for flute and piano; (5) The Path of the Old Oaks, for chamber ensemble; (6) The Lake Isle of Innisfree, for female voice with finger cymbals, and flute; (7) Poema Místico, for speaking pianist with amplified voice; and, (8) Paths Between the Wind and the Sea, for full orchestra. They were composed in York between October 2009 and February 2013. The work presented here is the result of my intense compositional practice, development of techniques, research, reflection, and experimentation with performers. The main aspect focused in the compositional process of the pieces in this folio was the creation of textures – those that results from the overlapping of gestures in combination or, in a greater degree, of the overlapping of textures, i.e. multilayered textures. For me, the use of these overlapping of gestures or multilayered textures is an important compositional tool that helps to create directionality, contrast, ambiguity, transition in different hierarchical levels and between sections, and continuity in an atonal musical discourse – either in clear-cut multimovement pieces, or in larger-scale single movement pieces.

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This thesis is a composer's manual on how to select and appropriately use musical materials in accordance with some of the parameters of the Hermetic Tradition. It puts to the reader's consideration a few proposals for Hermeticist grammars of musical composition. 'Grammar' here is used in the sense of a set of rules which govern the construction of musical discourse. Musical grammars thus comprise rules pertaining to the construction and selection of both 'lineal' musical materials such as pitch rows, rhythms, motifs and timbres, as well as of simultaneous events such as harmonic or contrapuntal textures. The adjective 'Hermeticist', derived from the noun Hermeticism, refers to a form of traditional Western urban, learned and humanist occultism. This occultism is distinct from folk, popular, or religious/devotional forms of magic, which also occur in the West as well as in other cultures and societies. It is also distinct from other Western occult movements that are either revivalist in their inspiration (such as Wicca or neopagan religions) or related to the 'pop culture' of the last quarter of the twentieth century, such as the movements of New Age and Chaos Magick. The first part of the thesis, the textual component, briefly examines the historical encounters between Hermeticism and music theory, very few of which have produced sounding pieces of music, while most of them have happened exclusively at the theoretical, philosophical or mystical-speculative levels. In the second part, the portfolio of musical compositions, I demonstrate the application of the proposed methods through pieces of music I have composed using the historical, theoretical and technical background presented at length in part 1. I further comment on these musical results through annotations and description of precompositional work, context research and composition processes used in each individual piece.

PhD submission consisting of a portfolio of recordings presented both in their published form on five twelve-inch vinyl records and on two compact discs. The portfolio is accompanied by a commentary intended to facilitate access to the aesthetic statement presented in the portfolio. Following Charles Keil’s distinction between ‘embodied meaning’ and ‘engendered feeling’ this project investigates approaches to the creation of Techno music in terms of the significance of specific sounds, techniques and technologies in generating subsyntactic value. The concept of the groove and the importance of microtiming as they operate in my practice are discussed in the commentary and demonstrated through the production of a series of Techno records including both original compositions and remixes.

The following text serves to accompany a body of practical work in music (composing) and mark-making. The two elements, when taken together, are an illustration of the role which certain types of fieldwork developed by the author may offer the composer if adopted into the process of acoustic invention. The introduction sets forth the conditions in which such an approach to the relationship between the natural, the sonic and the visual becomes relevant and important. Ideas of interconnectivity are introduced and terms are defined. Chapter two deals with the ideas of connecting patterns and sets of relationships in more detail, exploring the concepts of implicate order and recurring natural patterns. In chapter three we enter into discussion of fieldwork as a practice, encompassing theory and practical application. Chapters four to seven concern themselves with the analysis of the compositions borne of the fieldwork in question, and enter into more detail about any fieldwork specific to the pieces themselves. The relationships between the pages of sketches and the written music is considered here from the musical point of view. Finally, chapter eight acts as a brief conclusion to the study, in which we not only consider the results of the application of the fieldwork practice but also seek to identify which paths the continuation of this practice would benefit from and where we might take this work in the future.

The pieces presented in this research project explore compositional approaches centring around evolving repetition. Through my compositional practice, I investigate repetition as a mechanism for generating perpetual musical transformation and creating hyperactive action based on shifting patterns. Repetition serves to establish rhythmic relationships and to mature patterns, as well as to drive persistent rhythmic instability and textural transience. These qualities generically summarise each of the pieces included in this portfolio, however every piece is particular, written for a specific context and approaching the characteristics described above from various perspectives. Connected to these creative processes and aesthetic traits is the performer’s precarious relationship with the score; the abundance of prescribed, rhythmically progressive actions magnifies the instability of the medium of notation. Alongside sound, I consider the interpersonal interactions between performers and the dynamics of the ensemble to be important factors in driving compositional thought. The growing importance of these ideas throughout the composition portfolio has led me to a reconsideration of the modes of collaboration involved in my practice. This includes an evaluation of traditions of performance practice in relation to the plethora of compositional and notational approaches in contemporary scored music. The core of this research is the composition portfolio which comprises of twelve musical scores and recordings where available. This is supported by a commentary exploring both technical aspects of the work and a contextual discussion of the research, which considers recent and related approaches of other practitioners.

This accompanying commentary details my development of a large-scale approach to composition. Outlining my need to find a way of dealing more comprehensively with my material, the essay explores the nature of material itself and what it is to be large-scale. The works of other composers and theorists are examined and discussed alongside analyses of my composition portfolio

The following pages form a commentary on my own thoughts, notes, sketches and final printed texts of six pieces written between 2009 and 2013. The purpose of the text is twofold: to inform the reader of the intentions and poetic impulses of the composer and to make an accompanying statement for a researcher or musicologist who might attempt an actual analysis of the pieces. It is not, in my view, the work of a composer to self-analyze the extensively or to deconstruct the entities that are represented by finished compositions. However, the commentary itself is a reflection of the music – a personal account of what was important during the creative stages of ‘inventing’ a music the very essence of my thoughts during the period when I composed the music. In that it is, unquestionably, the most complete, appropriate and succinct account the composer might offer, regarding the thoughts behind the sounds. From a technical point of view, the methods I used for the compositions in this portfolio range from using scalar formations and basic techniques such as inversions, permutations, augmentations or diminutions of materials all the way to more abstract methods of organising sound, whereby the choice of register, for example, is the outcome of a correspondence with an extra-musical narrative. The structure of my commentary is that of a sonata, with this abstract being the motif. After an introduction (Nostalgia – ‘what is silence?’), I start out with a triple exposition (Regeneration – Ordinatio – Nos dec), continue with a development (Exelixis, meaning literally ‘development’) and finish off with a recapitulation (Quantum, where the themes of the exposition and the recapitulation meet). The coda is a resounding ‘confession’ that if little has been achieved, much has been questioned in the process. Why the sonata form? A commentary on certain structures ought to be structured in an opposite way.

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