If this chord was produced from a single spatial location, it would collapse into a dense and largely static timbre. In particular, spatial separation is used to clarify and distinguish individual lines within the extremely dense, sixteen part harmony. The piece utilizes many of Henry Brant’s ideas, albeit with a much less atonal harmonic language.
The choir is divided into four SATB groups positioned symmetrically around the audience and facing a central conductor. This noise texture was originally intended to accompany the choir, however in practice this proved to be unnecessary as the choir could easily produce hissing, noise textures which achieved the same effect. When a very large grain duration was employed the granulation algorithm produced a rolling noise texture which rose and fell in a somewhat irregular fashion and was highly reminiscent of the sound of breaking waves. The initial inspiration for this work came from some experiments with granulated white noise. The piece was commissioned by the Spatial Music Collective and New Dublin Voices choir, and was first performed by New Dublin Voices in Trinity Chapel, in January 2008. Sea Swell was my first choral composition, which I wrote many years ago in 2007 while working on my PhD in Trinity College Dublin.
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