Jennifer Martin

Programme Note

Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar living and working in the 13th century. His writing and teaching on theology and philosophy are considered to be of huge significance in the development of Christianity, and it is one small aspect of his teaching that I have addressed in `Doubtless!'
In 1256, Aquinas was appointed professor of Theology in Paris, and over the next few years his often controversial lectures were followed by vigorous classroom disputation. These debates gave rise to a series of treatises which dealt with matters such as Truth and Freedom (De Veritate) and The Soul (De Anima). It is the concept of disputation that was the starting point of Doubtless! My disputation is between the three curcial elements of music, pitch, rhythm and timbre each of which emerge from a hisitant and breathy opening. Each element states its case and a vigorous dialogue ensues, but as all three elements need the others to survive each material is subsumed by the texture once more.
The work was written in conjunction with a Higher Grade Composition Project at St Thomas of Aquinas High School in Edinburgh, where the work was premiered in 1995.