Bruce Lazarus
Messier Star Clusters and Nebulae
Duration: 22'
Solos:
piano
Messier Star Clusters and Nebulae
Translation, reprints and more
Bruce Lazarus
Messier Star Clusters and Nebulae Available digitallyOrchestration: for piano
Type: Noten
Sample pages
Work introduction
Six Explorations of Messier Star Clusters and Nebulae is a concert suite for solo piano based on the life work of French astronomer Charles Messier (1730-1817). Messier compiled a catalogue of approximately 110 diffuse objects in the night sky, objects which are now known as nebulae, star clusters, galaxies, and immense patches of interstellar gas which can be spotted by unaided eyes on clear nights. Hubble and Webb telescope images of Messier objects reveal vistas of extraordinary beauty and variation in energy patterning – spiraling, floating, exploding, diffusing – which suggest musical variations in rhythm, texture, formal design, and melodic elements. The six Messier objects described musically are M104 "Sombrero" Galaxy, M63 "Sunflower" Galaxy, M42 Orion Nebula, M25 The Pleiades, M57 Ring Nebula, and M31 Andromeda Galaxy.
Messier 104 “Sombrero” Galaxy
Radiant, vaguely hat-shaped Messier 104 combines the circularity of a spiral galaxy with the diffused swarming of a inclined elliptical galaxy. This celestial juggling act is expressed musically in a tight, one-measure musical cell in 5/4 which is repeated – rotated – throughout the work with continuous variation in harmony and gradually evolving intensity. At the moment of peak intensity a second, extremely slow-moving rotational pattern is added in the bass. The music dissolves into nothingness in its final seconds.
Messier 63 “Sunflower” Galaxy
The multiple, rather diaphanous spiral arms of graceful Messier 63 are also represented by a repeated figure, though the materials are handled in a more lyrical and improvisatory manner than the concentrated developments of Messier 104.
Messier 42 Orion Nebula
Messier 42, in the constellation Orion, is a birthplace of stars and a violent region of space. Newly-created stars emit streams of hot, charged particles which intensify into immensely powerful stellar winds that blow furiously at hundreds or thousands of kilometers per second. Photons of ultraviolet light from the hottest stars irradiate and excavate any exposed surfaces in the nebula. The resulting shockwaves de-stabilize regions of dust and gas that ultimately coalesce and spawn yet more young stars. The music represents the stellar wind; its speed, its power to destroy and create.
Messier 25 The Pleiades
Seven harmonically-related progressions of luminous chords suffice to represent the seven luminous primary stars of this open star cluster in the constellation Taurus.
Messier 57 Ring Nebula
The apparent “ring” is actually a translucent globe of expanding gas with a tiny, brilliant stellar remnant at the center, the result of a giant star’s casting off its outer shell and subsequently dwindling to a white dwarf. Gentle pulsation supports a slowly developing, dream-like melody which becomes ever more fragmented and tenuous until the flow of continuity dissolves. The expanding gas shell has dispersed and ultimately vanished into space.
Messier 31 Andromeda Galaxy
The brightness, immensity, and circular motion of the Andromeda Galaxy’s magnificent spiral arms are represented by intricately patterned music, described as “more an impression of grandeur and circularity than speed.”