Ceres

I was inspired to write Ceres after reading Bill Bryson's A short history of nearly everything. Ceres was one of the first Asteroids to be discovered. I took the idea of 'Asteroids being rocky objects, all of which are capable of colliding with the earth and all of which are moving at slightly different courses through the sky at different rates. There are possibly two thousand asteroids big enough to imperil civilised existence. Even a small asteroid the size of a house could destroy a city. (paraphrased from pages 241-3 of Bill Bryson's book).

The idea of the piece is that different blocks of material (the first two a tune with florid Clarinet accompaniment and then a syncopated Trombone idea) gradually collide into a dense climactic section (at fig. 8) then split apart (fig. 10). I was very attracted to the doomsday aspect of Asteroids and the idea that the earth could be destroyed by one any day. Maybe this was affected by my strict religious upbringing that in the book of revelation warned of Armageddon and the destruction of an evil world. I have added another two asteroids to Ceres to make a set ('Juno' and 'Torino scale') commissioned by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott.

Mark-Anthony Turnage 2012

“Turnage chose to focus on the asteroid’s massive destructive potential in the event of a possible collision with Earth. His music wisely refrains from scene-painting the apocalypse, but this six-minute work still succeeds in conjuring a mounting sense of anarchy by pitting large swaths of music against each other. Themes appear to stack up in one moment, and slice across each other the next. In the final coda, Turnage has the cellos playing beneath their bridges, creating a ghastly spectral sound, like an icy wind heard from outer space… A fascinating and decidedly dark curtain-raiser.”
Boston Globe