322
See also: Spem in alium 44–45 ■ Monteverdi’s Vespers 64–69 ■ St. Matthew
Passion 98–105 ■ Elijah 170 –173 ■ The Dream of Gerontius 218–219C
onceived on the grandest
scale, with multiple
ensembles, singers, and
instrumentalists, Schafer’s musical
spectacle Apocalypsis (1977) is
part of a long tradition in Western
art music that extends back to
Monteverdi’s Vespers. An even
earlier inspiration is Tallis’s motet
Spem in alium, whose immersive
use of eight five-voice choirs
influenced the 12 spatially arranged
choirs used in the second part of
Apocalypsis, “Credo.”Opposing sound pollution
Schafer, who founded the study
of acoustic ecology in the 1960s,
pursues ecological themes in his
work, opposing the gradual masking
of the natural soundscape by
man-made noise. Such themes
are the subject of Apocalypsis.
The first part, “John’s Vision,”
tells of the destruction of the world
using texts from the Bible’s Book of
Revelation and a new Antichrist’s
vision of good (cities, jet aircraft,
computers, and “the habit of
energy”) and evil (museums,feminism, sentiment, and art). This
vision, clearly opposed to Schafer’s
ethics, is vanquished in the second
part, “Credo.” Here, Schafer adapts
12 meditations from Giordano
Bruno’s cosmological treatise De
la causa, principio et uno of 1584.
Each starts, “Lord God is universe,”
creating a cumulative, ritualistic
effect. The last proclaims “Universe
is one: one act, one form, one soul,
one body, one being, the maximum,
and only,” encapsulating Schafer’s
spiritual and ecological beliefs. ■THIS MUST BE THE
FIRST PURPOSE
OF ART ... TO
CHANGE US
APOCALYPSIS ( 1977 ) R. MURRAY SCHAFER
IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
Sonic ecologyBEFORE
1912 Mahler writes his Eighth
Symphony, a bid “to imagine
the whole universe beginning
to ring and resound.”1966 Schafer begins Patria,
a cycle of large-scale music
theatre works conceived for
special (often outdoor) spaces.AFTER
1994 The Apocalypse by John
Tavener is premiered at the
BBC Proms.2003 With Sonntag, Karlheinz
Stockhausen completes his
seven-opera cycle Licht.2006 John Luther Adams’s
The Place Where You Go To
Listen, a sound and light
installation reflecting natural
rhythms, opens in Alaska.Schafer’s Apocalypsis is inspired by
the vision in Revelation in which four
horsemen, depicted here in a woodcut
by Christoph Murer (1558–1614), are
the harbingers of the Last Judgment.US_322-323_Schafer_Lutoslawski.indd 322 26/03/18 1:02 PM