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Audio · John Beaulieu

Restless Spirits Rising

By John Beaulieu

Performed In Concert Woodstock NY February 25, 2012
John Beaulieu and Peter Wetzler — Piano Four Hands

Restless Spirits Rising is a musical exploration of the human desire to transcend our present condition and rise toward new states of awareness.

Originally composed for multiple pianos, the work consists of individual scores based upon different Phi-number sequences. Each score represents a separate musical being—a restless spirit following its own pathway of struggle, transformation, and ascension. When performed on multiple pianos, these musical beings form a kind of sonic society. Each has its own trajectory, yet none exists in isolation. Their individual journeys intersect, separate, conflict, and momentarily come together within a larger evolving field.

The pathway of ascension is heard in percussive Phi-number patterns that repeatedly rise above an underlying field of persistent restlessness. Something is always reaching upward, yet something remains unresolved. This is the paradox at the center of Restless Spirits Rising: the desire to arrive at a higher state creates the very restlessness that keeps us moving.

This performance by John Beaulieu and Peter Wetzler compresses that society of independent musical beings into two people sharing the piano as one resonating body.

Playing Restless Spirits Rising requires ten finger trills inspired by mystic Sufis whirling to the sound of the Sarod and Alexander Scriabine’s Sonata No. 10 (Op 70), sometimes referred to as the “insect sonata” because of its multiple trills. The percussive rhythmic sequences are generated from the digits of Phi (the Golden Ratio), extended to one million decimal places. The Golden Mean numbers are amplified (percussed) above the trilling through different hand positions based on tabla drumming. The basic hand positions are KA (flat heel of hand), TIT (direct downward strike), TA (wrist below keyboard finger strike), and DA (hinged wrist finger slap).

Performance Technique

Performing Restless Spirits Rising requires continuous ten-finger trilling, creating a shimmering field of restless sound from which the composition’s rhythmic patterns emerge. The technique was inspired in part by the ecstatic movement of Sufi whirling and by Alexander Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 10, Op. 70, a work filled with extraordinary layers of trills and sometimes associated with Scriabin’s fascination with insects, vibration, and transformation.

Against this continuously moving field, percussive rhythmic bursts derived from the Golden Mean (Phi) rise into the foreground. The Phi numbers are extended to the millionth decimal place and translated into rhythmic sequences, allowing a mathematical proportion to generate an unfolding series of musical events.

The pianist brings these Phi patterns forward by percussing them above the continuous trilling. Different hand positions, inspired by my exploration of tabla drumming, produce contrasting attacks and gestures:

  • KA — a flat strike using the heel of the hand
  • TIT — a direct downward strike
  • TA — a finger strike made with the wrist positioned below the keyboard
  • DA — a finger slap produced through a hinged wrist movement

The result creates two simultaneous musical layers: beneath is the continuous, vibrating field of ten-finger trills; above it, Phi-derived rhythmic gestures repeatedly emerge, intensify, and disappear.

The technique is therefore inseparable from the meaning of the composition. The trilling embodies restlessness; the rising percussive Phi patterns embody the impulse toward transformation and ascension.

Watch the performance

Watch Restless Spirits Rising on Vimeo

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