Now Voyager boldly goes into the Soviet sphere

A little over three years old, Voyager proceeded from its Glasgow

premiere to the London Proms. The following year it travelled across

Germany. Then it orbited Poland with a stop-off at the Warsaw Autumn

Festival -- the Olympics of contemporary music.

In between times, it came back into view in Glasgow during the Xenakis

Festival, and received multiple broadcasts by the BBC. Within the last

few weeks, it has received its American premiere.

And now, hard on the heels

of the American performance, Voyager's trajectory shifts eastwards

towards Russia and Glasgow's twin city, Rostov on Don.

Geddes has just received a letter from the chairman of the board of

the Rostov branch of the composers' union, informing him of their

intention to perform Voyager in the Don Spring Festival in mid-May, and

inviting him to come over to Russia for the occasion.

Not only is this another important performance of what is, quite

evidently, an extremely significant little work, but it may well be the

first complete performance in Russia of any modern Scottish orchestral

work.

The score of Voyager was passed, last summer, to the great Russian

conductor Yvgeny Svetlanov while he was at the Edinburgh Festival giving

a series of stupendous performances with the USSR State Symphony

Orchestra.

Svetlanov apparently was impressed with the piece, and, on learning of

the Rostov-Glasgow connection, passed it on to the Don Festival as an

appropriate occasion for the Russian premiere.

Voyager was commissioned by the BBC as a short piece to mark the

occasion of the opening of the refurbished Studio One in Broadcasting

House, Glasgow, an event which coincided with the fiftieth anniversary

of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

It was intended as an eight-minute overture. It was immediately plain,

from the stellar atmospherics of the piece, and the sizzling trail of

sparks it emitted at its premiere, that Voyager was rather more than

just an introductory piece.

Its composition coincided with the reappearance of Halley's Comet, an

event to which Geddes (who is interested in astronomy) alluded in his

background note to the work.

''Despite its spatial effects,'' said the composer at the weekend,

''it's not consciously a descriptive piece.

''I don't usually allude to things, or use humorising terms in my

music. This is an exception. But if the description creates a mood, or

gives people something to hang on to in the piece, then I don't mind.''

Geddes, an accomplished and professional lecturer as well as composer,

is eagerly anticipating getting over to Rostov, where he will also be

talking to the Russians about Scottish music.

The letter of invitation also contains the intriguing sentence,

perhaps open to politico-

cultural speculation, that ''We would like to express our great

interest in strengthening the creative and cultural ties between our

partner cities and their

musical organisations . . .''

It does seem to this observer, as has been stated often on this page,

that Voyager, along with Geddes's other two short orchestral pieces,

Lacuna and Ombre, forms a triptych of remarkable orchestral variety and

intellectual fibre.

As such, they need a display -- all three performed within a season as

a consistent and coherent unit. They are also crying out for a

commercial recording. The international evidence of their value,

especially Voyager, continues to accumulate.

I don't usually

allude to

things, or

use humorising

terms in my

music.

This is

an exception