Driven Into Harmonic Ecstasy

Endlessly Illuminated: Part One

for Piano and Electronics

Composer/Performer: Troy RAMOS

Copyright 2013 Troy RAMOS

Duration: Six Tracks, totaling c. 23’00



Endlessly Illuminated: Part One is a work for electronics and piano and made up of six elements: 



1  Unimaginable Lights (4'25)

2  Chemical Changes (4'16)

3  To The Torrential Light (4'09)

4  Driven into Harmonic Ecstasy (2’41)

5  The Flowers (3'15)

6  The Heroism of Discovery (4'31)



Total Time: c. 23'00



This work was premiered at the Portland Art Museum for its staff art show, titled "From the Right Hemisphere", on Friday, June 28th.

The texts/titles associated with this work come from the poem Motion by French writer Arthur Rimbaud. This poem had a big effect on both the overall structure of this work and on the initial process by which I began composing this piece. Below is the entire poem, in translation:

Motion

The swaying motion on the bank of the river falls,

The chasm at the sternpost,
The swiftness of the hand-rail,

The huge passing of the current

Conduct by unimaginable lights

And chemical newness

Voyagers surrounded by the waterspouts of the valley

And the current.

They are the conquerors of the world

Seeking a personal chemical fortune;

Sports and comfort travel with them;

They take the education

Of races, classes, and animals, on this Boat.

Repose and dizziness

To the torrential light,

To the terrible nights of study.

For from the talk among the apparatus,—the blood, the flowers, the fire, the jewels—

From the agitated accounts on this fleeing deck,

—You can see, rolling like a dyke beyond the hydraulic motor road,

Monstrous, illuminated endlessly,—their stock of studies;

Themselves driven into harmonic ecstasy

And the heroism of discovery.

In the most startling atmospheric happenings

A youthful couple withdraws into the archway,

—Is it an ancient coyness that can be forgiven?
—
And sings and stands guard.




Arthur Rimbaud, from Illuminations (1872-1874)