THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM: Marisse Cato
Selwyn College Chapel Choir, Cambridge
(prepared by Sarah MacDonald)
Michael Bawtree · conductor
Music of Our Time (JAM's opening season concert)
20 March 2024, 7:30pm
St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London
www.jamconcert.org
Recurring themes across these ancient texts regarding creation include the domestication of water and its separation from the land, the threat of serpent-like creatures, chaos and order. The trajectory of the piece also draws from the Theology of Memphis’ creation through speech as words move from their fragmented, whispered and heterogenous formats into more sonorous and unified timbres across the work, further mirroring the chaos-order theme.
A diverse set of vocal gestures and timbres is threaded together to create a wide-ranging, multi-layered sonic environment using quartal harmonies and melodies, stacked and intersecting to create drama along with use of register in a very suspended harmonic sound world. The combination of textural gestures which characterise the harmonically driven material moment-to-moment guide the text setting at a moment-to-moment micro as well as macro-structural level for a new dimension of text interpretation beyond pitch material, contributing to a dynamic overall structure.
This text was compiled by Ella Jones, as a synthesis of various pieces of creation literature within the Old Testament and from the Ancient Near East. From the Old Testament, she has drawn on Genesis, Job, Proverbs, and Psalms, incorporating poetry and prose from across biblical history. Much of the creation literature in the Old Testament has its origins in the theologies of the Ancient Near East, and thus phrases are taken from the Repulsing of the Dragon, an Egyptian creation myth that seeks to explain the phenomena of the rising sun, to pay homage to this historical genealogy.
In the beginning the Almighty created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void, and the darkness hovered over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters [Genesis 1:1-2]
Who can stand before it? Who can confront it and be safe? [Job 41]
When he established the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass over the face of the deep […] then I was beside him […] and I was daily His delight [Proverbs 8:27,30]
Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable; […] there go the ships, and the Leviathan which you formed to play in it. [Psalm 104: 25-26]
When the boat entered the western darkness at evening, It faced the peril of the serpent, who might destroy the sun […] It was with God to repel the serpent, so that the sun might cross the underworld by night and be reborn in the morning; thus man should survive death and be reborn. [The Repulsing of the Dragon from Ancient Egypt]
There is terror all around his teeth […] his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. [Job 41]
A mist rose over the land, and watered the whole face of the earth. [Genesis 2:6]
He makes springs gush forth from the valleys; they flow between the hills; […] the trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, those shining cedars of Lebanon. [Psalm 104:10, 16]
Marisse Cato is a London-born composer and violinist. Her compositions evoke unique and entrancing sound worlds through which the listener is invited to consider their own listening and somatic experience as they explore the body of textures and tone colours presented. She has received commissions for stand-alone compositions and performances from Siglo de Oro, Devon Philharmonic Orchestra in partnership with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Cambridge New Music Group and others. Her works have been performed in prestigious locations including West Road Concert Hall and Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. She works collaboratively with other disciplines including dance, film and fashion. Collaborations include Lily Maguire’s fashion film “Hold That Pose” screened in the Cambridge Union Keynes Library with DISRUPTION Creative Ltd. Cato’s performance work ranges across contemporary, classical and popular styles. She performed in the European premiere of The Blue Hour with soprano Hannah Dienes-Williams and her own composition Asteria in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge to over 1,000 visitors at their Museum Late event 2023. Her commercial work includes recording on the debut album of singer Mira May’s “Tales of a Miracle” and subsequently featuring alongside the artist at her headline show in Charing Cross at HERE at Outernet to over 2,000 people.
www.marissecato.com
Film by Gareth Kay
www.garethkay.co