Dale Cornelius – What is carried, what is left behind?
Dale Cornelius is going into very personal territory with What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind? a six piece modern classical album about the fragility of the links between memory, grief, family and renewal. Having composed for film and television for many years he brings that cinematic sensibility to the music, which is absolutely compelling without any need for a visual narrative. He’s worked with Eclective Strings (the Melbourne string collective) and the music is a blend of string quartet, synths and found sound resulting in something very intimate, very haunting and quietly immersive. The first track “In This Moment, What Matters Most?” is all about that. It’s inspired by a question that became a very important mantra during a period of caring for his mother and dealing with anxiety. The point of the piece is to stop and think about what it is that actually matters. It’s not about building to a dramatic climax, it’s about the space it creates. The title track “What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind?” takes that concept further. It’s built around the sound of a metal door moving in the wind which Dale recorded outside the Concattedrale di San Salvatore in Montalcino, Italy. That very unusual sound is the central motif of the piece and it gives it a real sense of place as well as a sense of how a simple moment can become inextricably linked to a memory. The music is a mixture of the environmental sound, the strings and the electronics and it’s a very distinctive experience, taking something quite accidental and making it absolutely essential to the emotional language of the piece.
“Innocence” takes a different approach and is all about vulnerability and the fragility of experiences which can never be regained. It acts as a very natural bridge between the album’s meditations on memory and the more personal material that follows. It’s the emotional core of the record really, with “A Whispered Dawn (Spencer’s Lullaby)” taking that role. That piece was originally written by Cornelius in 1999 during the very terrifying time of Spencer’s premature birth. Spencer was born at 27 weeks and spent three months in the NICU with the doctors not at all sure he’d survive. Cornelius wrote the piece at that time but it remained as a piece of manuscript for 26 years before it was finally recorded. To hear it get its first recording is to give it a meaning which is far beyond the music itself. It’s the music of a father in a state of terror and uncertainty about the survival of his child, and of someone looking back at that experience 26 years later. The string quartet is the perfect vehicle for such a piece of personal material as it can convey the emotion through the nuances of the tone and phrasing rather than through any need to explain the story in words. “Under an Impersonal Sky There Is Hope” then widens the emotional scope of the record and brings in a sense of endurance and possibility in the face of the vastness of the world. The title is a recognition of the often impersonal nature of life, but it also contains the sense that there is still hope for the future even when there is no certainty. The final track “Bloom” brings the journey of renewal to a close. After the weight of memory and the vulnerability of the previous tracks it’s the quiet emergence of something new that the title suggests, a gentle sense of progression rather than a forced happy ending.
Cornelius’ screen composition background is very much on show in the album’s atmosphere, though What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind? is less about telling a story and more about providing the listener with the opportunity to find their own story in the music. His experience on a number of productions (Mary & Max, Backtrack, Till Human Voices Wake Us, The Doctor Blake Mysteries) has given him a very strong understanding of how to convey emotion through sound and that understanding is absolutely evident in this more personal project. The Eclective Strings provide a layer of depth and expressive detail, the synths and found sounds take the music well beyond the confines of traditional chamber music and the Dolby Atmos mix gives the sounds the space to surround you and really place you in the environment. The technology is never allowed to dominate the human experiences at the heart of the record. What is so powerful about the record is the way the six tracks are all about private memories and the universal emotions they evoke: the anxiety of uncertainty, the pain of possible loss, the tenacity of hope and the slow process of acceptance. Cornelius doesn’t offer any answers or resolutions. He simply provides space for you to consider what we carry with us and what we eventually have to let go of. What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind? is a very thoughtful and moving record which shows how instrumental music can be used to tell a very personal story and still leave room for the listener to find their own meaning.
“With strings, found sounds and haunting electronic textures Dale Cornelius turns the weight of memory into a moving musical journey from fragility and loss to hope and renewal.”
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