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Ghosts
Chopin
I am a medium, I have a rare gift known as the independent direct voice. I do not speak in trance, I need no trumpets or other paraphernalia. The voices of the dead speak directly to their friends or relatives and are located in a space a little above my head and slightly to one side of me. They are objective voices which my sitters can record on their own tape recorders to play later in the privacy of their own homes. Sometimes those who speak from beyond the grave achieve only a whisper, hoarse and strain, at other times they speak clearly and fluently in voices recognizably their own during life.
I do my work by sitting wide awake in total darkness with other people. I know I have learnt more about life and people and human problems and emotions by sitting in the dark than I could possibly have learnt in any other way, and those who have taught me the most are people who, dead to this world, are living in the next.
Taken from Voices in the Dark, Leslie Flint’s autobiography.
On a cold Saturday morning, 19 December 1959, one of the many séances conducted by Leslie Flint was recorded. After a while a hesitant voice is with a foreign accent manifested itself:
I do not know if it is really afternoon or morning…er… Time is always a most complicated thing for us to be certain about. When we come to your Earth conditions, we are always inclined to be puzzled about certain things….
Interviewer: May we know your name?
Voice: My name is Chopin, Frédérique Chopin.
Chopin spoke in English. None of the participants understood French. About his passing over Chopin told the interviewers (abbreviated):
I only remember that I was very ill, lying on my bed. Some of my friends were with me and gradually everything seemed still. It was as if I was drifting away from everything. And then I began to see an enormous light. At first it was a little tiny glimmer, then it became brighter and brighter…and I began to hear sounds. Music began to swell up and became louder and louder…it was as if there was a whole, whole orchestra. Magnificent!
I tried to hear, how you say, what this melody was. I could not recognise it. It was not music I was accustomed to. It was different; much more magnificent than anything I ever hear……True music, real music, great music, is something that is beyond your world, and springs from the spiritual aspect of man: the realization of the greatness and the oneness with God. Great music is something that is really born in the spirit and is reproduced, perhaps very badly, in your world.
On the higher planes, on the very high evolved planes, we can create music without instruments, by the mere effort of thought. Thought being creative here, a great musician can complete and achieve a whole work without an instrument at all! He can, as it were, create all the sounds from himself and, in consequence, those who are attuned in to his thoughts and himself – as it were – will hear the reproduction of that which the composer has created.
Man in your world – though he has advanced in many ways tremendously – is still very ignorant of the power of the spirit. The power that has been hidden within. It has been said to you: “Knock, and it will be opened unto you.”. But few people bother to knock. They are content with that which has been given to them. There are many in your world who are very sincere, very kind, very good people……but they are very childish!
The voice of Chopin spoke for almost half an hour.
This piece uses the Nocturne No. 7 in C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1 as its starting point – in particular the interplay between the D natural and C sharp of the opening page.
Instrumentation
Flute db alto/2 clarinet db bass/2 bassoons/2 horns/celeste/piano/4 offstage pianos/harp/2 percussion/tape/2 violin/2 viola/2 cello/2 bass
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known California mansion that was under construction continuously for 38 years. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchesterwho continued construction on the house 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, until her death 38 years later on September 5, 1922The cost for such constant building has been estimated at about US $5.5 million.
The mansion is renowned for its size and lack of a master building plan. According to popular belief, Sarah Winchester thought the house was haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles, and that only continuous construction would appease them. It is located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California
Deeply saddened by the deaths of her daughter and husband, and seeking solace, Sarah Winchester consulted a medium who told her that there was a curse upon the Winchester family because the guns they made had taken so many lives. She told Winchester that “thousands of persons have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking vengeance” and that she must “build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon, too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die.” Some believe Winchester followed the medium’s directions to distract the spirits she believed were hunting her, and commenced construction on her new home.
Sarah Winchester inherited more than $20 million upon her husband’s death. She also received nearly 50 percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, giving her an income of roughly $1,000 per day, none of which was taxable until 1913. This amount is roughly equivalent to $21,000 a day in 2006 dollars. All of this gave her a tremendous pool of wealth from which to draw to fund construction on the mansion.
The house began as an eight-room farmhouse. Then she began to build. For 38 years, until Sarah’s death in 1922, carpenters worked 24 hours a day, 365 days a year building this strange monument to the world of spirits. At the time of Sarah’s death there were 160 rooms (in various stages of completion) in the house. However, it is estimated that over 600 rooms were built and then torn down over the 38 years. Every night, Sarah would go to her Séance Room to receive messages from the spirits telling her what she should build. At midnight every night, the bell in the bell tower was rung to summon the spirits. At 2 AM, it was rung again as a signal for the spirits to depart. The rest of the day the bell laid silent .The tower was only approachable from the outside by climbing onto the roof of the mansion using a ladder. The bell was hung at the top of the tower, with a long rope hanging down a sheer, unclimbable wall. The rope was reached through underground tunnels, the precise layout of which was known only to the bell ringer and his assistant.
The orders from the spirits resulted in many strange constructions, such as doors that open onto walls, stairs that go nowhere, a cupboard that has only 1/2 inch of storage space, and tiny doorways and hallways just big enough for Sarah to fit through. Sarah also had a fascination with the number thirteen, which features heavily throughout the buildings construction. Many features in the house were built in sets of 13 or multiples of 13. For instance, in the 13th bathroom (the only one with a shower), there are 13 windows. One of the sinks has 13 drainage holes, curtain rods have 13 rings, windows and ceiling panels have 13 panes. The symbol of the daisy (which in it’s perfect form has 13) can also be seen everywhere- in rugs, chandeliers, windows, and walls. There are 52 skylights, and the grand staircase has 13 steps. Thirteen palm trees line the driveway. As a final gesture, Sarah’s will was divided into 13 parts and signed 13 times.
Two other numbers favoured by Sarah were 7 and 11. There is one stairway in the house that has 7 steps down and then 11 steps up. Another, called the switchback staircase, turns 7 times and has 44 steps, but only goes up 9 feet. Some speculate that stairs were built so low because Sarah had arthritis; others think she had them built that way to confuse and/or slow down the spirits.
This work is inspired by the buildings unusual construction and numerology and is in essence an nocturnal set of variations journeying through some of the building’s more
Instrumentation
Flute/clarinet db harmonica/oboe/bassoon/horn/trumpet I/trombone/guitar db banjo/piano db keyboard/offstage keyboard?1 percussion/2 violins/viola/cello/bass
Spiricom
In a interview with Scientific American in October 1920,Thomas Edison was questioned on his beliefs regarding direct communication with the dead. He said that it might be “possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence or sphere who wish to get in touch with us in this existence or sphere, this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity to express themselves than the tilting tables and raps and ouija boards and mediums and the other crude methods now purported to be the only means of communication.”
Following on from the research of parapschologists such as Friedrech Jurgenson and Konstsntine Ruadive the American industrialist and scientist George Meek developed a device that purported to allow two way communication with the spirit world through a machine for the first time.
In 1979, he and his colleague Bill O’Neil developed the Spiricom device, a set of 13 tone generators spanning the range of the adult male voice. O’Neil was psychically gifted, and he collaborated with his spirit friends while developing the large radio-like apparatus, which gave off a droning buzz that filled the room. When O’Neil spoke in its presence, you could hear his voice getting wrapped up in the buzzing noises of the Spiricom machine. He worked on the machine for months, and then a most amazing thing happened. Another voice began to get wrapped up in the radio sounds too—a voice belonging to someone who was present in the room, but invisible. The voice of a spirit.
The spirit collaborator soon identified himself as Dr George Jeffries Mueller, a NASA scientist who had died in 1967 and had now come close to the vibration of the Earth to assist Meek and O’Neil in opening a communication bridge between the two worlds. O’Neil and Mueller went on to record more than 20 hours of dialog between 1979 and 1982.
From “The Research of George W. Meek” by Mark Macy
Instrumentation
3 flutes 2 db picc/3 oboes/2 clarinets 1 db Eb/2 bassoons 1 db contra/3 horns/2 trumpets/2 trombones/tuba/electric guitar/bass guitar/keyboard/vocoder/3 percussion/timps/6 violins/3 bass
Ghosts: Three nocturnes for orchestral ensemble was written under the auspices of the Creative Scotland Awards and is supported by the National Lottery through the Scottish Arts Council.