Now Is A Long Time (2020)
Details
Description: Choir
Duration: 6'
Instrumentation: SATB divisi
Commission: Commissioned by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain
First performance: As yet unperformed
Score link
Recording:
Programme Note
Over the past year, I’ve faced two periods of compulsory confinement. In 2019, I was in a car accident that kept me in bed for months. We all know what happened in 2020. In these moments, many of us will have noticed that time passes differently. With the sudden retreat of activity, of movement, and in the face of a rising sameness, time seems to slow and warp.
This led me to the philosophy of time. If all activity were to be paused – if birds were frozen in the air and the hum of atoms stilled – could we say that time has passed? Our intuitions differ here (mine says we could not, that time is a measure of change). In a fascinating 1969 paper, Sydney Shoemaker attacks this problem. He imagines three strange cities, where time is paused for a year every three, four and five years, respectively. Every sixtieth year, the whole world freezes. Shoemaker aims to present a scenario in which the passage of frozen time might be reasonably inferred. But its uncanny resemblance to 2020’s drifting lockdowns hit me harder than its philosophical implications.
For a while, this piece remained untitled. Then, as our second lockdown approached, I cycled by a piece of graffiti at Waterloo Station that seemed to summarise my feelings: Now Is A Long Time.
Description: Choir
Duration: 6'
Instrumentation: SATB divisi
Commission: Commissioned by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain
First performance: As yet unperformed
Score link
Recording:
Programme Note
Over the past year, I’ve faced two periods of compulsory confinement. In 2019, I was in a car accident that kept me in bed for months. We all know what happened in 2020. In these moments, many of us will have noticed that time passes differently. With the sudden retreat of activity, of movement, and in the face of a rising sameness, time seems to slow and warp.
This led me to the philosophy of time. If all activity were to be paused – if birds were frozen in the air and the hum of atoms stilled – could we say that time has passed? Our intuitions differ here (mine says we could not, that time is a measure of change). In a fascinating 1969 paper, Sydney Shoemaker attacks this problem. He imagines three strange cities, where time is paused for a year every three, four and five years, respectively. Every sixtieth year, the whole world freezes. Shoemaker aims to present a scenario in which the passage of frozen time might be reasonably inferred. But its uncanny resemblance to 2020’s drifting lockdowns hit me harder than its philosophical implications.
For a while, this piece remained untitled. Then, as our second lockdown approached, I cycled by a piece of graffiti at Waterloo Station that seemed to summarise my feelings: Now Is A Long Time.
Score |
Recording
Text
When you fly through the air, Time is as fast as oncoming wheels. At the crunch, clocks will stop, Calendar days will pass in a flood, While hours trickle by. The glacial past masses behind Shifting, calving time. Which melts, floats away. Time is a measure of change, And I have changed. First all at once, Then not at all. Lying fast-frozen for months, I ossify, Evaporate, Fly through the air. Joe Bates, 2020 |