Natural Light by DAVID BRUCE

The British artist Brian Clarke creates art using the unusual medium of stained glass. Traditionally associated with religious buildings, stained glass invokes the divine through its fragile beauty and ephemeral light. Clarke’s innovation was to reimagine this spiritual quality outside of religious contexts. So although his work is sometimes found in churches and mosques it is equally found in shopping centres, airports, and homes. The materials are the same, but their effect—what Clarke calls transillumination, the light shining through—is no less profound.

After hearing a performance of Duruflé’s Requiem, where Gregorian chant melodies are bathed in impressionistic harmony, I was struck by how old musical forms could resonate in new ways. This inspired me to try placing medieval materials “in a new light.” Just as Clarke extends the language of sacred art into secular spaces, I wanted to draw on the expressive power of ancient melodies to evoke a sense of spirituality that is not confined to religion. The resulting work, natural light, consists of five movements. Each engages with fragments of medieval music, but recontextualises them in different ways. The odd-numbered movements lean toward the spiritual and reflective, while the even ones are more exuberant or playful.

A solo clarinet acts as the thread running through the piece—capable of both wild exuberance in the energetic even-numbered movements and the hushed delicacy and introspection of the more spiritual odd-numbered ones. Its ability to inhabit such contrasting emotional worlds gives the work a unifying voice, one that can sing, dance, or quietly illuminate, depending on the light it finds itself in.

I. Floating
A single Gregorian melody refracts across the quintet, creating the impression of multiple colours within a single line—like the different colour wavelengths hidden in white light.

II. Bursting
A sombre, chant-like melody forms a backdrop, from which joyful bursts of dancing, carnival-esque, clarinet-led grooves erupt, violently colourful against a dark background.

III. Passing
Evening light sways softly, evoking repose, reflection, or remembrance. The movement opens with a solitary clarinet call, before another chant melody is surrounded by gently blurred harmonies and delicate arpeggios.

IV. Intersecting
A doleful version of an anonymous 13th-century melody is repeatedly fragmented and interrupted by wonky rhythmic bursts of colour, two very different colours that are forced into dialogue.

V. Transilluminating (Homage to Brian Clarke)
This last movement is dedicated to Brian Clarke, who died very shortly after the completion of this piece. Another ancient melody, this time by the composer Pérotin, is played in barely perceptible tones—glimpsed from afar, as if through mist or soft, shifting light. The music hovers on the edge of audibility, still and suspended. There is a sense of fragile ephemerality—of time, meaning, and light.