Score and parts for hire

In much of my recent music I have been preoccupied with the place where rational organisation and intuition meet. I like order and disorder equally, but I particularly like the moment where one slides into the other and the ghost appears in the machine (or the machine in the ghost). I stole the title (but nothing else) from Arthur Koestler’s book. 'The Ghost in the Machine' is a fifteen minute accelerando for large orchestra. A huge melody, built in a slightly mediaeval way, unwinds throughout its course: heard first (a la Mahler) on six unison horns before passing through the violas to unison woodwind and the trombones before finally returning to the horns. Behind this tenor, a battery of percussion spasmodically ticks like a massive, broken clock. 'The Ghost in the Machine' was commissioned by the BBC.

© John Woolrich