JUMP CUTS

(2019)

14'

My commission from Manitoba Chamber Orchestra came with a very specific brief: it should of an agreed length and be written for a reduced chamber orchestra - strings, two oboes, two horns and a bassoon. This is standard scoring for the dawn of the symphonic repertoire - the very earliest symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, for example. I did think of writing a three movement homage to those early symphonies, but that is territory that was comprehensively covered by the 20th century neoclassicists - and Stravinsky’s legacy loomed too large.  

My usual workplace is in the opera house,  though I have been dabbling more and more on the orchestral scene recently. Thus, it was no surprise that my 12 minute curfew conjured up an iconic piece: Rossini’s ‘William Tell’ overture.  This consists of four very different scenes, an elegy, a storm, a pastoral idyll and the military galop immortalized by the Lone Ranger. But my sketches for Jump Cuts did not start with a narrative or a scene (my usual practice) but with snippets that oddly refused to coalesce.  At the same time, on late night TV, I had caught a re-run of an old classic: Jean Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’ (with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, the 1960’s precursor of all the cool gangster flicks) and the germ of this piece was born. I stopped trying to force what seemed like irreconcilable elements together (a process known as consilience, according to a physicist friend), and studied how Godard pioneered the idea of a jump cut - sequential shots of the same subject taken from different angles, with no transition, or an abrupt segue from one scene to another. 

So instead of Rossini’s four distinct scenes, my piece darts around from mood to mood, tempo to tempo, as if the fabric is cut by scissors. The initial idea, a call of two horns, one noisy, and one muted, as if from a distance, is thrown around in a variety of guises, culminating in an unruly procession, where the violins fail to get into sync. Do please make up your own narrative, enjoy the unexpected scenes and landscapes that unfold, and prepare for a few jolts. 

By the way, I am told by a film director, that my use of the term ‘jump cut’ is not quite accurate, it should in fact be a ‘smash cut’ (a non-sequitur shot from one unrelated thing to another), but I feel my piece jumps rather than smashes, so forgive the technical inaccuracy for the sake of poetry. 

The piece was completed at the Hermitage Artists Retreat, Florida and commissioned by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. Jump Cuts is dedicated to the memory of my wise and wonderful stepfather, Alan Biffen (1925-2019)

Premiered 8 March 2022 by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra c. Julian Pellicano at Westminster United Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

For small orchestra (2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, strings)