The Confession of Isobel Gowdie

Melody and Rhythm: 

• Most significant melody is Lux Aeterna
• Opening Section: integrates various chants into complicated texture, unified in melodic style to symbolise people of Scotland

• Melodic structure consists of adding in new notes that follow the lydian mode with varying rhythms across each instrument 
• Addition of strings in bar 14 marked ‘divisi’ means MacMillan can build up a web-like texture of ten independently moving string melodies. Each part has a chant like melodic character restricted to a small range of neighbouring pitches creating a complicated texture and blurring effect of interweaving chants. 
• Bars 44-47 the texture spans over 4 octaves with 5 pairs of melodic lines: upper violins, lower violins, upper violas and cellos, lower violas and cellos, basses. Alternating rhythms and melodies show fear and distress of the programmer disarray. 

• First sections embodies tension and panic of Isobel Gowdie. Rhythmic character of melodies begins to change with held notes elaborated at the end in a flurry of semiquavers. The elaborations become more intense with each one longer than the previous one then disappearing ‘like a sigh’ 
• This shows there is a strong connection in his mood between psychological angst and musical contexts 

• Middle Section: each change of tempo introduces new melodic and rhythmic variant of the Lux Aeterna melody. Use of brass, woodwind and percussion represent the confession itself growing in hysteria 
• Middle section melody is made up of parts of tones and semitones or their diversions. Repeated notes become more significant with the Lux Aeterna melody being used in a slower, harmonised form using the melodic technique of extending the melody each time it appears. 

• End of Piece: dramatically builds up before coming to a conclusion: highly rhythmic and dance-like brass writing; combining quavers in unpredictable patterns of twos and threes. Music gets faster and builds up to 8 bars of repeated crotched B’s at bars 329-336.
• Lower strings are revealed playing the lamenting chant of the opening but is not exact, suggesting prayers have been altered by experience of violence in the middle section. 

Harmony: 

• Discord harmony adds to feeling of fear 
• Opening has dissonant interval of a second between D and C, finally resolved on unison C at bar 62 ‘like a sigh’
• Use of 5 notes from lydian scale prevents the piece from having much harmonic progression, giving a feel…