From a tattoo of a composers neck to title of a modern classical composition: A dual review on a fascinating piece of modern classical music produced by a renowned Drum and Bass artist and a captivating television series by the BBC showing the evolution of the piece to its completion and first performance in the Royal Albert Hall.

On July 31st and August 7th 2009, BBC 2 showed a two part documentary titled Classic Goldie telling the story behind the composition of Sine Tempore. Composing a commission piece is a challenge for any composer, but watching Goldie cope with this challenge was a fascinating experience.

The primary challenge for the would-be composer was how to get around his musical analphabetism. Being unable to either read or write musical annotations might seem an insurmountable obstacle on a par with writing a novel when unable to read and write, but Goldie showed that where there is a will, there is a way.

With the help of numerous people provided by the BBC he manages to bring to paper what was going on in his head. As part of the parcel I gained insights into how other composers work, saw how computer aided musical writing works, and how composing classical music differs from composing by synthesizer. Goldie himself often got frustrated by the difference in the process being used to the synthesizer where he would be able to listen to the sound of his composing instantly. Here he had to transfer his composition to paper, get it played and listened to in bits and parts, and then go back to the drawing board to smooth out the wrinkles.

As opposed to the tattoo on his neck, which reads sine tempor, he decided on the correct spelling to use on his composition. His impatience while trying to cope with all the delays gives you the clue how he came by the tattoo as well.

On August 1st 2009, Sine Tempore saw its world premier in the Royal Albert Hall earning huge applause from the audience. The set theme for composer Goldie was evolution. The composition was done for chorus and orchestra and consisted of a single movement. The final composition proved to be well balanced even if lacking in orchestration depth. But for a first try it was it was very good. And it is no coincidence that Mozart’s first compositions were lost for the last 200 years; it took him years to arrive at the magic flute.

For me the most fascinating part had been listening to Goldie’s thought strings during the documentary. It emerged that his image of his composition, even though starting with the big bang, concentrated mainly on human evolution as the single most important evolution happening. But listening to his finished piece, my mind painted a multi-layered picture of evolution going on on many different levels at the same time. Contrariwise, the picture of evolution in my mind is a multi-layered one with human kind one of many layers happening at the same time, but the musical picture it forms is a single layered melody.

For the future I think he will be well able to use the orchestra and its instrumentation to the full, as I think that his eyes were opened to the vast possibilities that were opened up to him by this experience. He might be a bit disappointed going back to the synthesizer with its very limited scope of musical freedom, though.