Sound Tracks
1. The John Muir Way
“The snow is melting into music”
John Muir
The John Muir Way - a path that begins on the Scottish east coast in Dunbar (Muir’s town of birth) and traverses the central belt, via Falkirk, to the west coast is a reminder of the famous Scottish conservationist’s radical approach to life - his ‘way’.
Ultimately, he chose a nomadic lifestyle in the mighty wilderness in the north west coast of America - now commonly known as Yellowstone National Park. This opening soundtrack depicts Muir’s brave journey and provides a possible soundtrack inside of his mind as he observed “the snow melting into music” in the vast splendour of the Rocky Mountains.
Track Listing
2. Skirmish
“Better meddle wi’ the de’il than the Bairns o’ Fa’kirk”
The Falkirk Crest
By virtue of Falkirk’s central geographical location, throughout history it became a regular collision point for bloody conflicts or ‘skirmishes’ between neighbouring tribes, hence the pugnacious motto of the Falkirk Crest!
The music here is a soundtrack to one such (imagined) encounter between medieval tribes.
The opening theme - a rabble-rousing call to arms acquiesces to an enveloping chromaticism as the attackers creep up on the enemy before the clash of the first blows of battle are signalled by the final emphatic closing cadence.
3. La Scozia
“I have learned more from the streets than in any classroom.”
Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather
Inspired by Nino Rota’s nostalgic, evocative (and character revealing) soundtrack for The Godfather, La Scozia (Scotland) is a sound track for the first generation Italian community who first made a brave new life in Falkirk in the early 20th Century - “their sunny, optimistic outlook helping to leven our dour Scottish character”. (Ian Scott, Falkirk Historian).
4. Outdoor Feeling
“Childhood is measured out in sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows”
John Betjeman
This light hearted piece, with it’s Gershwin-inspired melodies and syncopated rhythms is a soundtrack for those treasured moments when, in the midst of ‘lockdown’, the composer and his children enjoyed their daily rush of freedom when they temporarily escaped outdoors to run, cycle and play.
Children are a great reminder for any composer to embrace the art of ‘play’.
5. Wheel Slowly Turning
“Give me a place to stand, a lever long enough and a fulcrum. And I can move the earth”
Archimedes
The iconic Falkirk Wheel’s ingenious application of Archimedes’ principle of water displacement to raise and lower boats inspired the careful musical construction of ‘Wheel Slowly Turning’. Each time a melodic phrase is presented, either a direct imitation or an answering counter-phrase ‘offsets the weight’ of the preceding phrase.
The intention? Archimedes’ principle in sonic form!
6. Running For Miles
“The music had to be rooted, and yet had to branch out, like the wild imagination of a child”
A.R. Rahman
In a literal sense, the title refers to the Falkirk Core Path Network’s many miles of recreational tracks upon which people are free to walk, run and cycle. In the composer’s case, the title also describes his own efforts to keep pace along those tracks with his exuberantly energetic young son - Miles!
Given Miles’ vivid imagination, there is something of the ‘superhero’ in this soundtrack!
7. Antonine
“To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.”
Nadia Boulanger
By far the most substantial and impressive building in the Falkirk area is Callendar House. During the 19th Century, Lady Louisa Charteris, daughter of William Forbes of Callendar, composed a series of pieces for harpsichord. Her large manuscript remains in the archives. Antonine, so-named as the remains of the Roman Antonine Wall, once patrolled by garrisons of Roman Centurions, passes through the grounds of the house.
This is a soundtrack dedicated to Calendar House and her once-resident lady composer.
8. Victory Dance
“Without victory, there is no survival.”
Winston Churchill
Although there is little documentation about tribes from the early centuries AD, the Romans described the native Caledonians as “long limbed fearless warriors” and so one might also presume their victory celebrations were similarly unrestrained.
With the ‘skirmish’ between the neighbouring tribes concluded for now, this soundtrack describes the victors celebrating with abandon. The musical language is an entirely fanciful hybrid of Eastern European and Latin American melodic and rhythmic ideas - an unlikely melting pot perhaps - but not unlike Falkirk’s own diversely multicultural heritage.
9. Nostalgia
“Music is not even the expression of a feeling, it is the feeling itself.”
Claude Debussy
The ‘feeling’ captured by this soundtrack is the composer’s nostalgic reflections of growing up in his home town amidst school, church, the local tennis club, family and friends. It is mainly ‘characters’ and influential people that come to mind - teachers, mentors, coaches, club leaders, managers and matriarchs. A cyclic sequence of un-resolving rippling piano chords generates a spacious, hypnotic flow over which a dialogue between cello and flute gradually blossoms.
All tracks written and arranged by Euan Stevenson with percussion arrangements by Tom Gordon.
© 2022 Euan Stevenson Music & iOcco Music
℗ Euan Stevenson Music & iOcco Music 2022
All Rights Reserved. .