SONILLUMINATIONS

at the John Rylands Library

Welcome to Sonilluminations.

This is the soundtrack to an imaginary medieval manuscript. You will hear strange birdsong, a lake of fire, the sounds of a type of star called a pulsar, an old folk ballad, and medieval plainchant arranged in the style of Doctor Who composer Delia Derbyshire.

Medieval Illumination

Medieval illumination is the art of decorating manuscripts with illustrations, borders, grotesque figures, and other intricate designs, often in vivid colours and featuring gold or silver leaf. The practice flourished between the 8th and 16th centuries, primarily in monasteries, where skilled scribes and artists painstakingly adorned religious, scholarly, and literary works. The illuminations served a mixture of functional and aesthetic purposes. Sometimes they helped convey the significance and meaning of a text, but there are also plenty of examples of unrelated doodles with no apparent purpose.

Sonilluminations

‘Sonillumination’ is a word I have coined to describe the musical equivalent of illumination. I treat the entire collection of the John Rylands, with its many eclectic topics, as the manuscript to sonilluminate. Like illuminations, the music is both directly illustrative of certain artefacts as well as decorative.

Sonilluminations is made from three different kinds of section called Foliated Borders with Birdsong, Inhabited Initials, and Plainchants – all elements that can be found in medieval manuscripts.

The Dies irae plainchant in the style of Delia Derbyshire

This is, in a sense, the ‘chorus’ of Sonilluminations. Sections of the famous Dies irae plainchant are heard four times. The first three of these are arranged in the spirit of electronic music pioneer and Doctor Who composer Delia Derbyshire, whose archives are held at the John Rylands. The melody is ‘sung’ using reversed voice samples, an AI voice designed by Holly Herndon, wine glasses, and a theremin, and accompanied by a pulsing heartbeat.

The John Rylands has a manuscript containing the chant, but it has not yet been photographed. The above image is from British Library MS 29987, f. 63v.

Foliated Borders with Birdsong

A foliated border is an ornamental frame around a manuscript page, adorned with patterns of leaves, vines, and flowers. Sometimes, hidden amongst the foliage, you will find animals, birds, mythical creatures or grotesque figures.

Latin MS 164, 114v

Latin MS 21, 43v

Each of the four sections of Sonilluminations begins with a ‘foliated border’ in the form of the sound of rustling leaves and birdsong, announced by the bell-like chime of a metal lampshade being struck. The birds have been chosen from the John Rylands Library’s collection of ornithological illustrations: a curl-crested manucode, a barred owl, a common loon, and an American bittern.

Foliated border with Curl-Crested Manucode

The curl-crested manucode has a hollow, stuttering, sigh-like call, which has been described as sounding like a UFO landing.

Image from John Gould’s ‘The birds of New Guinea and the adjacent Papuan islands’, Plate 34

Birdsong recording:
Jason Gregg, XC567476. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/567476
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0

Foliated border with Barred Owl

The barred owl’s call is a slightly ludicrous, almost laugh-like hoot. It is sometimes given the words ‘Who cooks for you all?’

Image from John James Audubon’s Birds of America, vol. 1, plate 36

Birdsong recordings:
steve, XC864701. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/864701
Kayla Brown, XC878848. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/878848
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0

Foliated border with Common Loon

The common loon’s call is often described as a yodel, but has a more haunting quality than that might suggest.

Image from John Gould’s The birds of Great Britain, Vol. 5, Pl. 43

Birdsong recording:
Yoann Blanchon, XC824906. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/824906
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0

Foliated border with American Bittern

The American bittern’s call sounds a bit like the ‘glugging’ of a jug of water.

Image from John Gould’s The birds of Great Britain, Vol. 4, Pl. 28

Birdsong recording:
Justin Watts, XC451067. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/451067
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0

Inhabited Initials

These are enlarged, decorative letters at the beginning of a paragraph or section of text, containing illustrations of a variety of human and/or animal figures.

Inhabited ‘P’ of ‘Psalteri’ from Latin MS 116, 8r

Inhabited ‘A’ of ‘Angelus’ in Latin MS 439, 2v

Each foliated border in Sonilluminations is followed by a soundscape built around the sonic equivalent of an enlarged letter. Using a technique called ‘granular synthesis’, the first letter (and sometimes syllable) of a recording of plainchant is extended over a long period of time, either as a steady, smooth drone or in a jittery, stuttering rhythm. These enlarged letters are ‘inhabited’ in three distinct ways:

Lake of Fire: inhabited ‘D’ from ‘Dies irae…’

The ‘D’ from ‘Dies irae’ is extended and gradually descends. It is surrounded by a ‘Lake of Fire’ soundscape, the unsettling cries of people and strange creatures alike amongst the flames.

In the Medieval manuscript containing illustrations of the Apocalypse, the lake of fire (pictured above) comes directly before images of the Last Judgement, which is the topic of the ‘Dies irae’ plainchant.

Image from Latin MS 19, 22r

47 Tucanae: inhabited ‘Q’ from ‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?’

The ‘Q’ is extended by repetition in an erratic, stuttering rhythm, and surrounded by a soundscape of pulsar stars. The archives of the Jodrell Bank Observatory contain a number of logbooks that record the radio waves emitted by pulsars. Radio waves such as these can be transformed into sound, and you can listen to a number of examples of this at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics here. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find a synthesised version of a star cluster called 47 Tucanae, which is the sound you hear in this soundscape.

Image from Pulsar Logbooks, JBO/Pulsar/11, page 15

The Northern Ditty: inhabited ‘Q’ from ‘Qui Mariam absolvisti…’

This second ‘Q’ is extended into a drone that accompanies a broadside ballad called ‘The Northern Ditty, or, the Scotchman outwitted by the Country Damsel’.

Image from Broadside Ballads R150649.46

Voice recording from the English Broadside Ballad Archive

Bird chorus & final plainchant verses: inhabited ‘L’ from ‘Lacrimosa dies illa…’

At the end of Sonilluminations, the ‘L’ is extended into a drone that accompanies the final Dies irae verses, here sung with no Delia Derbyshire-style electronic trickery. It is surrounded by a chorus of all the birdsong heard previously, like in the bird-filled foliated border above.

Image from Latin MS 164, 13r

Feedback

Please feel free to post any comments you have below. Posts will not be made public.

PATRICK JOHN JONES