This is a score that revels in contemporary sounds and techniques without ever overwhelming the ear. Every effect, every detail has its place and purpose. Often I was peering into the score, trying to figure out how on earth Higgins had spirited a new sonic image into being. What wizardry is this?
It’s a short piece that dances between extremes: low menacing hammerings on the piano to shrieking woodwind, ghost-tones to explosions. The scoring is transparent despite wonderful detail and the pacing is superb: at no point is the ear left to drift.
Higgins talks in an interview about how this Rambert commission reflects different modes of desire, and how our carnal instincts imitate those of the animal world and the world of myth. Sometimes it’s about gentle seduction, sometimes it’s sheer Darwinian survival instinct.
The music represents those different erotic modes so imaginatively. There are the held breaths, mutterings, shudders and heady anticipation. And then, as the title suggests, sections that crackle with the energy of raves and Ibiza, staccato dances that pick up where Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring left off. In its fourteen minutes, Higgins gives you a glimpse of world both of subconscious urges and extrovert desire.
