Composition: 'The Antithesis of Light'

 by Benedict Blythe

Although I rarely compose from emotion, like many current composers and songwriters, this piece is a good example of how such a springboard  can work its way into any sphere of creative intention.

This was composed rather late at night, edging on the small hours. A time which although not an advisable practice, does often produce good results through the possibility to facilitate total concentration. 

This work, titled 'The Antithesis of Light' is a piece of spatial music for choir, strings, pipe organ, and synthesiser. There are two points of inspiration for this piece.

The first, a recent experience in which brilliant sunlight-filled space, created an atmosphere of intensity and beauty, but antithetically, the experience ignited some strange force of anguish within oneself. This force seems to create darkness and isolation out of light.

The second point of inspiration was taking this idea, and visualising an abstract scene, in which a shaft of light is cast through an otherwise desolate and dark cathedral. Born out of this first experience, this visual idea manifests in the sound through creating a vast desolate space that is cold; the light in this space creates a sense of beauty and wonder that is corrupted by the dissonance of perspective and antithesis from this simultaneous isolation.