Beaufort Scales   CB0068

The music

“I first became aware of the Beaufort scale because of Scott Huler’s book Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, ​and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry. The book describes the author’s obsession with the elegance and beauty of this 13-step, 200-word scale, still in use, which measures wind from its gentlest (‘Calm / smoke rises vertically’) to its roughest (‘The air is filled with foam and spray’).

“I came to share Scott’s obsession and began composing a work for eight female voices and electronics, transforming the steps of the scale into 13 corresponding movements of escalating musical intensity. As the work proceeds and the weather becomes more chaotic, each of the voices is increasingly distorted. This mirrors our technology-saturated world, one in which uncanny and tumultuous weather has a growing presence.

“Interpolated between these 13 sung movements are four narrated interludes featuring four different texts—from the novels of Herman Melville and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the poetry of Anne Carson, and the King James Bible—all of which comment on the state of weather at one point in time, serving as both a reprieve and a reflection upon the surrounding movements.” —Christopher Cerrone

The text

Prelude

Sea like a mirror. Smoke rises vertically. Calm.

Step 1

Ripples with scales, no foam crests. Direction of wind shown by smoke drift but not by wind vanes.

Interlude 1

There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of transit, a thin red circle in the water. (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

Step 2

Wavelets, small, still short, but pronounced. Crests with glassy appearance, but do not break. Wind felt on face, leaves rustle, ordinary wind vane moved by wind.

Step 3

Large wavelets, crests begin to break. Glassy foam, white horses. Leaves and small twigs in constant motion, wind extends white flags.

Interlude 2

[T]he not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows … The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light. (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick)

Step 4

Small waves becoming longer, frequent white horses. Wind raises dust, loose paper, small branches move.

Step 5

Moderate waves of pronounced form (still short). Many white horses, some spray. Small trees in leaf start to sway, crested wavelets on inland waters.

Step 6

Large waves, extensive white foam crests, some spray. Large branches in motion, whistling in telegraph wires, umbrellas used with difficulty.

Interlude 3

The small hotel of Buergete is made of water. Outside, rain streams all night. Roofs pour, the gutters float with frogs and snails. You would not see me—I lie in the dark listening, swirling. Walls of the hotel are filled with water. Plumbing booms and sluices. A water clock, embedded in the heart of the building, measures out our hours in huge drops. Wheels and gears turn in the walls, the roaring of lovers washes over the ceiling, the staircase is an aqueduct of cries. From below I can hear a man dreaming. A deep ravine goes down to the sea, he calls out, rushes over the edge. The mechanisms that keep us from drowning are so fragile: and why us? (Anne Carson, The Anthropology of Water)

Step 7

Sea heaps up, white foam from breaking waves blowing in streaks with the wind. Small trees in motion, resistance felt walking in the wind.

Step 8 (Gale)

Waves of greater length. Crests break into spindrift, blowing foam in well-marked streaks. Twigs break from trees. Difficult to walk.

Step 9 (Storm)

High waves, dense foam streaks in wind, wave crests topple, tumble, topple, and roll over. Spray reduces visibility. Structural damage occurs, chimney pots and slates removed.

Interlude 4

[T]he wind started blowing hard and the sea became rough. Black clouds appeared on the eastern horizon, and that night there was the worst storm I had ever seen. The thunder and lightning never seemed to stop. It rained violently and the ship was thrown in every direction. The crew was on deck trying to hold down the whaling boats. Then it was night and the worst part of the typhoon hit us. The violent wind and rain tore the sails and broke the masts and the towering waves flooded the deck. Suddenly I looked up at the masts and saw lights at the tips of the sails—they looked like candles. The sailors stood close together and stared in amazement at the fire that danced in the sky. (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick)

Step 10

Very high waves with long overlapping crests. Dense foam, sea surface appears white. Heavy tumbling of sea, shock-like, poor visibility. Trees uprooted, structural damage occurs.

Step 11

Exceptionally high waves, concealing ships. Sea covered with patches of foam. Edges of wave crests blown into froth. (Poor visibility.) Widespread destruction.

Step 12

The air is filled with foam and spray. Sea white with driving spray; visibility seriously affected.

Postlude

He replied, “When the evening comes, you say, ‘it will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’” (Matthew 16:2)

The composer

Christopher Cerrone‘s compelling compositions are characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a literary bent, and an affinity for multimedia collaborations. He has been a Pulitzer-finalist (for his opera Invisible Cities) and a Grammy-nominee. His recent projects include an opera jointly produced by LA Opera and Pittsburgh Opera; an orchestral work with electronics for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; a piano concerto for Shai Wosner; a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony; a percussion quartet concerto for Third Coast Percussion and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and a work for the Louisville Symphony and baritone Dashon Burton.

“Cerrone is among that select group of young composers whose work is known beyond arcane musical circles.” (David Mermelstein, Wall Street Journal) “One of our most versatile composers under 40.” (Tom Huizenga, NPR) “A gifted composer with an impressive individual voice.” (Chicago Classical Review)

The performers

The Lorelei Ensemble has been praised for its “full-bodied and radiant sound” (The New York Times) and “stunning precision of harmony, intonation . . . spectacular virtuosity” (Gramophone), as well as its programs that champion the extraordinary flexibility and virtuosity of the human voice. Lorelei has recorded the music of such living composers as Kati Agócs, Peter Gilbert, James Kallembach, David Lang, Jessica Meyer, and Scott Ordway, as well as historical works by William Billings, Guillaume Du Fay, Alfred Schnittke, Tōru Takemitsu, the Turin Codex, and the Codex Calixtinus.

Reviews

“It seems closer and closer to criminal, labeling the music under discussion as Postminimalism, but it’s the closest categorical descriptor for Beaufort Scales, Christopher Cerrone’s masterpiece as performed so stunningly by the Lorelei Ensemble. What is Minimalism anyway? Is it the stone thrown in the proverbial pond, the motion of its sinking so completely from view, or the resultant spreading ripples? As it happens, both images are appropriate when coming to terms with this watery epic. Two concurrent strains delineate the album’s 11 tracks, labeled as steps and interludes, all bookended by a prelude and postlude. The scoring is for women’s voices and electronics. Texts are taken, we are told, from Francis Beaufort’s Beaufort Wind Force Scale and from authors Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Anne Carson.

“This is where things get a bit murkier. The interludes sport poetic and descriptive texts metaphorically adjacent to Beaufort’s, while the steps seem to be derived from Beaufort’s scientific writings, though these strands merge in the cataclysmic postlude. The interludes involve recitation, often in the company of whole words but all existing in a kind of stasis, rendering them more immediately intelligible than the fragmented steps, in which various scalar motions bolster some words but mostly fragments, even consonants and vowels, in stereophonic juxtaposition.

“Water pervades the whole, from words and statistics completely grounded in physicality to more elusive and dreamlike images. The whole begins with a scintillatingly susurrant presentation of the word “sea,” a spectacularly immersive experience whose sonic implications for the rest of the piece could not be guessed, though it contains scalar and harmonic kernels to be explored later. The steps float along, propelled by motors reminiscent of Philip Glass or Steve Reich’s vocal ensemble writing, as if Renaissance polyphony had been subsumed by augmented and skewed repetition and a neo-Stravinskian take on modality. Intelligible words fall headlong into the liquified linguistics, redefining them and rippling them outward toward the next. Phrases are elongated and reconfigured as they pass and are repurposed, dancing across the soundstage. Below the shifting clouds of liquid density, a layer of electronics serves as a protean backdrop. It hisses, glides, distorts, and reverberantly illuminates, as space constantly morphing, and each moment a continuous dynamic flux, a complement to the spinning and spiraling repetitions.

“At the heart of it all is Lorelei. What an absolutely exquisite amalgamation of voices! Each is refreshingly distinct, an entity unto itself captured with depth and power, and yet the voices meld with a precision barely describable. Just wait for the upper-register octaves, so pure and beautiful, centers within centers recontextualizing all around them, strategically placed in ways that emphasize and de-emphasize in a single gesture. The subtle integration of technology and voice should serve as a model, and Beaufort Scales must now be one of the most satisfying releases in a catalog full to overflowing with them.” —Marc Medwin, Fanfare

“The considerable artistic strides taken by Christopher Cerrone on last year’s In a Grove continue apace on his latest release, this one also a vocal work but of a different kind. Whereas the earlier one captured the composer’s second foray into opera (his first, the Italo Calvino-inspired Invisible Cities, was a 2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Beaufort Scales (2022-3) is a riveting oratorio of thirteen sung movements interspersed with four spoken interludes. Performed by the nine-member Lorelei Ensemble—five sopranos, two altos, and a mezzo-soprano conducted by artistic director Beth Willer—the mesmerizing result reaffirms Cerrone’s stature as a composer of singular gifts and a standout of his generation.

“That the world premiere recording of Beaufort Scales would appear on Cold Blue is fitting, given the label’s ongoing commitment to visionary work. That the words ‘In memoriam Ingram Marshall’ appear on the release’s inner sleeve is likewise fitting considering the pioneering advances the late composer made in incorporating electronics into his creative practice. Cerrone is following a similar path in the way electronics weave into his thirty-five-minute piece. Like Marshall, Cerrone’s treatments aren’t indulgently or randomly applied; instead, they’re integral to the realization of the desired effect and the work’s kaleidoscopic character.

“While Stephanie Fleischmann’s libretto for In a Grove drew for inspiration from a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the primary text for Beaufort Scales comes from the Beaufort Wind Force Scale devised by Francis Beaufort in 1805. Images of wind and sea on the release package reflect a scale designed to measure wind speed as it relates to sea conditions. Complementing the Beaufort texts are ones by Herman Melville (Moby Dick), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Anne Carson (The Anthropology of Water), and the King James Bible that reference weather conditions at particular points in time.

“Despite the fact that Beaufort devised his scales over two centuries ago, Cerrone’s oratorio, recorded at a Boston studio in November 2023, is timely given the weather extremes the planet’s currently experiencing; with tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, and tornados everyday occurrences, topics like climate change and global warming are never now far from many peoples’ minds. The issue’s contemporary relevance is referenced by the composer, with Cerrone stating that the increasingly frenzied vocal expression in the work “mirrors our technology-saturated world, one in which uncanny and tumultuous weather has a growing presence.”

“If the integration of electronics into a classical context suggests a parallel to Marshall, the vocal design, even if superficially, calls Steve Reich’s Tehillim to mind. Yet Cerrone’s distances itself from that seminal work in not grounding itself in the kinds of strictly delineated rhythm patterns for which Reich had become known. Cerrone adopts a freer approach to the vocal writing, such that voices flurry like the most unpredictable of winds. Which is not to suggest that a clear compositional structure isn’t in place, as he clearly designed the piece so that it would grow increasingly turbulent from one vocal section to the next. That’s shown in Beaufort texts that advance from the initial ‘Sea like a mirror / Smoke rises vertically / Calm’ description to the culminating ‘Widespread destruction’ and ‘Sea white with driving spray; visibility seriously affected.’

“Every composer needs performers capable of rendering a particular vision into being, and Cerrone could have asked for no better vocal outfit than Lorelei Ensemble for the presentation of this work. Founded in Boston in 2007, the group’s eight ultra-flexible female vocalists are capable of singing with naturalistic purity and surgical precision, but they’re just as capable of generating wild and unusual effects when the material demands it. In the work’s tone-establishing prelude, the singers whisper, hiss, declaim, and layer their luminous, resonant voices into incandescent ripples; in step one, electronics multiply the voice elements, scattering the fragments and creating gyroscopic flurries. By the time step eight is reached, the voices are furiously clustering and crisscrossing.

“The calmly enunciated interludes act as grounding episodes in a presentation that grows progressively more chaotic. Even there, however, intimations of disruption are audible, as the wind-smeared excerpts from Moby Dick illustrate. And while much of the interlude texts are spoken, some parts are sung in a way that reinforces the content. When the words ‘The mechanisms that keep us from drowning are so fragile: and why us?’ occur during the Carson interlude, for instance, the voices spiral vertiginously downwards.

“Thirty-five minutes is modest by CD standards, and the release could have supplemented Beaufort Scales with a second Cerrone work to bring it into the fifty-minute range. Yet the release never feels like it requires anything more when the work presented is so rewarding. Sporting a striking visual presentation well-suited to the music, Beaufort Scales impresses as a superb addition to Cold Blue’s discography and another splendid creation by Cerrone.” —Ron Schepper, Textura

“The Beaufort Scale, devised in 1805 by Francis Beaufort, relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. It is a 13-part scale of increasing intensity. Experiencing wind is strongly subjective—‘one man’s stiff breeze might be another’s soft breeze‘—which is why describing the conditions by sea or land conditions is helpful. For example: Beaufort 0 is described as ‘sea like a mirror’ and ‘smoke rises vertically.’ Beaufort 12 (the heaviest storm imaginable) as ‘the air is filled with foam and spray; sea is completely white with driving spray; visibility very seriously affected’ and with the much shorter land condition ‘devastation.’

“The different descriptions of wind forces read like a poem. This inspired composer Christopher Cerrone to compose Beaufort Scales, a composition for female choir and electronics, ‘transforming the steps of the scale into 13 corresponding movements of escalating musical intensity.’ ‘As the work proceeds and the weather becomes more violent, I use different forms of electronic processing—granulation, downsampling, pitch shifting—to distort the voices.’

“Between the steps, there are also four spoken interludes, with wind-related texts from The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, The Anthology Of Water, and the King James Bible. At these moments, you can regain your breath somewhat, because—even if this composition is no longer than 35 minutes—it gets more and more intense as it progresses. Which can of course be expected when following the Beaufort Scale from 0 to 12.

“But even the strongest storm eventually subsides: tranquillity returns in the Postlude: ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red (Matthew (16:2)’.” —Peter van Cooten, Ambientblog

“Cerrone has written a 35-minute work that defies norms (as much of his work does) and explores our world where climate change is arguably the most urgent issue of our time. He does this by combining music and text. Some of the text is from the Beaufort Wind Force Scale and other text comes from the writings of Anne Carson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Melville and the King James Bible. . . . The Lorelei Ensemble beautifully performs this work which is certainly not easy, but is essential listening. This is music as advocacy in the best possible way.” —Craig L Byrd, Cultural Attaché

“From ‘sea like a mirror’ to ‘the air is filled with foam and spray,’ the composer Christopher Cerrone and the nine-woman Lorelei Ensemble perform a siren tribute to the beauty and elegance of the Beaufort scale.” —Christopher Laws, Culturedarm (Track of the Week)

“Beaufort Scales was composed by Christopher Cerrone, and it is performed by the Lorelei Ensemble, an eight piece vocal ensemble directed by Beth Willer, with electronics provided by Mr. Cerrone. . . .  There are 13 sung movements with four narrated interludes. . . . All of the texts deal with the state of the weather, serving as a reprieve and a reflection of the surrounding movements.

“Commencing with ‘Prelude: Sea Like a Mirror,’ the vocals are angelic and eerie with an organ-like drone perhaps created by the electronics. ‘Step 1: Ripples with Scales’ pulsates slowly with hypnotic vocal sounds and an odd repeated vocal sample. ‘Interlude 1: F. Scott Fitzgerald’ has several voices each repeating different words, all about the wind and waves, taken from The Great Gatsby. I love the way the layered vocalists harmonize and evolve over time. I have always loved richly harmonized vocal music, thanks to bands like the Beach Boys and the Association. Mr. Cerrone is a master of this as well. On each piece, Cerrone uses the vocalists in different ways, layering the vocals to accentuate either the words or the feeling that words or voices evoke. The electronics are used minimally and never for weird effects, mainly to enhance the sounds of the voices. I’ve listened to this work several times over the past week and each time I was mesmerized. I would love to hear more vocal music like this, it is superb.” —Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter     

“I couldn’t miss this disc, dedicated to the memory of Ingram Marshall (1942–2022) . . . a composer who meant a lot to me. As does the record company which welcomes the music of Christopher Cerrone for the first time—Cold Blue Music, the home of John Luther Adams, Michael Byron, Peter Garland, Jim Fox, Chas Smith . . . And then imagine that this disc is performed by the Lorelei Ensemble! How can we resist the call of eight sirens? Finally, it’s the newest record from Christopher Cerrone, who I’ve been following quite faithfully since his second record, The Pieces That Fall to Earth.

“It was while reading Scott Huler’s book, Defining the wind: The Beaufort scale, and How a 19th-Century Admiral turned Science into Poetry that Christopher Cerrone decided to write a work based on this scale invented by the British Admiral Francis Beaufort in 1805 to empirically measure the force of the wind, from force 0 (‘calm / the smoke rises vertically’) to 12 (‘hurricane / the air is filled with foam and spray’). Beaufort Scales is a work written for eight female voices (the Lorelei Ensemble) and electronics (the composer). It comprises thirteen movements of increasing musical intensity, plus four interludes on extracts said to be from F. Scott Fitzegerald, Herman Melville, and the Canadian poet Anne Carson, and an excerpt from the Gospel of St. Matthew from the King James Bible. As the wind increases and the weather deteriorates, each of the voices becomes more and more distorted, a reflection, according to the composer, of a world saturated with technology, in which extreme weather conditions become more frequent.

“It all begins with whispers and light whistles, then a first voice rushes out, relayed by echoes, then a second, a third, in an increasingly dense canon, a true reborn sheaf of light. This is the very beautiful “Prelude” rustling with mysteries. Step 1 (“Step 1, title 2) first offers a game of calls and responses consisting of the word “Ripples” sent like ping-pong balls, so many tiny wrinkles before the entry of the voices sung against this slippery background. The first interlude juxtaposes Fitzgerald’s text, impeccably said, and a fine electronic framework on which the fragile echoes of certain words arise.

Stages 2 & 3 (title 4) develop a bewitching polyphony of volutes, rockets, circular repetitions. We are at the heart of this post-minimalist cantata that is Beaufort Scales . We could also speak of an oratorio, because of the alternation of sung pieces and spoken pieces (the interludes, also partially sung by the way)), despite the profane subject, because the perspective is constantly sublime. Angelic voices sing of the beauty of the winds, the perpetual rise to the heavens. Listening to Christopher Cerrone’s music, I thought he was paying a double homage, to Ingram Marshall, of course, but also to Steve Reich. Beaufort Scales is the Hidden Voices of Ingram and the stunning vocal compositions of Steve Reich brought together for a dazzling celebration of the states of the elements, of the sea like a crucible of molten gold, which bubbled with light or the fire which danced in the sky. The electronic score of miraculous finesse accompanies the eight voices (four sopranos, two mezzo-sopranos, two altos) of these new sirens throughout this captivating eulogy of the weather. The last stage and the Postlude create an astonishing atmospheric organ, grandiose and ineffable…

From disc to disc, Christopher Cerrone asserts himself as one of the major composers of our time. Beaufort Scales is his new, resplendent masterpiece.” —Inactuelles

“Christopher Cerrone, whose opera Invisible Cities launched him and The Industry, director Yuval Sharon’s maverick opera company, to national prominence, may be the first composer to find inspiration from the Beaufort scale. Now what is that? It’s a standard scale devised by the Royal Navy officer Francis Beaufort in 1805 that measures wind speed in relation to sea and land conditions. The scale consists of 13 steps from zero to 12, with zero meaning ‘calm,’ all the way up to 12’s ‘hurricane-force,’ each step with a short yet elegantly detailed description of what to expect.

“Thus moved, Cerrone devised a semi-a-cappella work for the eight female voices of Lorelei Ensemble and electronics, called—of course—Beaufort Scales. The piece, based on the ascending path of the scale, with a text containing words taken from the scale’s descriptions, would seem to call for a continuous crescendo a la Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. But it’s not that simple, for Cerrone intersperses spoken verses about the wind and sea by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Melville, and Anne Carson as interludes amid the growing turbulence.

“The piece, now available in a recording from Cold Blue Music, begins with a ‘calm’ Prelude of hissing electronics and whispered voices. Upon ‘Step 1,’ voices treated with digital delay whisper the words ‘ripples’ and ‘scales’ back and forth in stereo as electronic sounds of wind and sea stir up underneath. ‘Small and large wavelets’ are the next words to bounce back and forth as the female voices become more intelligible and forthright. As the sea waves grow higher, the voices grow louder, the repetitive patterns within each step becoming hypnotic in effect. 

“By ‘Step 7,’ the voices are shriller, even overloaded, and ominous words like ‘visibility’ and ‘structural damage occurs’ can be heard. Ultimately Melville speaks of a storm at sea, and the section subtitled ‘Very high waves’ sounds as if Cerrone is emulating Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach in his cyclic treatments of the voices. By the time ‘trees uprooted’ can be heard, we are in ‘Step 11,’ and the voices are now unintelligible, blurred into the electronic foam and spray. When a lone voice says, ‘You say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ the electronic storm—and the piece—ends.

“It’s all mostly pleasing to the ear and seemingly made-to-order for a label like Cold Blue Music that specializes in environmental soundscapes. Cerrone also doesn’t outstay his welcome, getting everything done in just under 35 minutes.” —Richard S. Ginell, San Francisco Classical Voice

“Beaufort Scales is a new CD by Christopher Cerrone recently released by Cold Blue Music. Commissioned by the Lorelei Ensemble, this album explores the musical expression of the wind at sea in eleven beguiling vocal tracks. The composer writes that each of the pieces “…comment on the state of the weather at one point in time, serving as both a reprieve and a reflection upon the surrounding movements.” Developed in 1805 by British Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort and still in use today, the Beaufort Scale describes the velocity of wind using a value from 0 to 12 to indicate sea conditions from flat calm to hurricane force. The album also contains pieces based on texts from Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anne Carson and the King James Bible. The eight treble voices of the Lorelei Ensemble bring a high level of virtuosity and a rare purity of tone color to all of the tracks in this album. Beaufort Scales is dedicated to the memory of Ingram Marshall. 

“The actual Beaufort Scale isn’t just numbers that represent wind speeds. For each number on the scale there is a corresponding description of typical wind and sea conditions. Beaufort Force 0, for example, includes the accompanying description: “Calm; Sea like a mirror. Smoke rises vertically.” A Force 7 wind is described as: “Near Gale; Sea heaps up and white foam from breaking waves begins to be blown in streaks along the direction of the wind.” The album tracks are numbered according to increasing Beaufort Force numbers and the track titles are taken from the relevant Beaufort descriptions of sea conditions. Most of the tracks combine a few of the Beaufort numbers together. Track 6, for example, is titled Steps 4, 5 & 6 Small, Moderate and Large Waves. Of the eleven tracks on the CD, seven are based on Beaufort numbers with the other four being interludes inspired by nautical texts. Track 5, for example, is titled Interlude 2: Herman Melville.

“The tracks are generally short, from a little over 2:00 minutes to just under 5:30. All of the music is performed by the eight female voices of the Lorelei Ensemble accompanied only by subdued electronics realized by Chris Cerrone. The early pieces begin gently according to their lower Beaufort numbers and the intensity gradually increases as the higher numbered tracks are heard. Prelude: Sea Like a Mirror, the first track, reflects Beaufort Scale 0. This begins in a quiet whispering sound, giving perhaps just the slightest suggestion of a breeze. This is soon accompanied by pure vocal tones in sustained harmonies that vary in volume. The singing is lovely with the words “Sea Like a Mirror” repeated in layered phrases. “Calm” is heard towards the finish as the sound of the lapping of small waves returns. Prelude: Sea Like a Mirror is a convincing realization of a calm, mirror-like sea surface. 

“Other tracks follow a similar pattern. Moving up the Beaufort Scale, track 8 is titled Steps 7, 8 & 9: Sea Heaps Up / Waves of Greater Length / High Waves. This opens with three voices sharply singing “Sea Heaps Up’ in a sort of round. There is a sense of urgency and alarm in the often dissonant harmony and strong articulation. “Waves of Greater Length” is heard in multiple voices with a lovely counterpoint. The singing here is precise and beautifully delivered.

“The Interludes are heard as separate tracks between the Beaufort Scale numbers. Interlude 2: Herman Melville, although short at 2 minutes, is perhaps the most overtly nautical. A soft rushing sound is heard on the opening followed by a clearly spoken text: “The not yet subsided sea rolled in long, slow billows.” The spoken words continue—there is no music—and a second voice joins in repeating the words as if an echo. The language of Melville nicely evokes life aboard a 19th century sailing ship. The rushing sounds increase, just before the sudden ending. Interlude 4: Herman Melville, track 9, is just a little longer at 2:11. The text is again spoken but is now more intense, describing a violent typhoon. “The winds started blowing hard and the seas were rough…” Singing begins in gorgeous harmony with a feeling that is both eerie and beautiful. The treble voices here are impressive, as is the careful sound engineering by Mike Tierney and Scott Fraser that perfectly captures the pure tones. 

“Electromagnetic waves are, arguably, the building blocks of the universe. Beaufort Scales brings a vivid description of waves as we experience them in a natural, physical context resulting from ocean and weather. Another Cold Blue CD, released at the same time is Waves and Particles,by John Luther Adams and this explores the character of waves from an elemental perspective. That waves can be treated from an earthly macro perspective and also at the atomic level is a testament to the great expressive power of the music from these two composers.” —Paul Muller, Sequenza21

“This album features Cerrone’s lush and seductive music for high-pitched vocals and electronics; a work made up of thirteen movements that unfolds a cautionary tale for our era of accelerating climate change.

“The main text of this album is taken from the Beaufort scale, a measure of wind speed, originally in relation to sea conditions, created by Francis Beaufort in 1805. Among the thirteen sung movements are narrated interludes which include four texts by Herman Melville, Scott Fitzgerald, Anne Carson, and the Bible…. Cerrone cites as inspiration the writer Scott Huler, who wrote about the poetry of the Beaufort scale….

“As the piece progresses, it grows chaotic—the whole, and each of its voices, is increasingly distorted. The author wants to reflect a world saturated by technology, and where tumult is increasingly present in our lives.

“The thirty-six-minute oratorio Beaufort Scales … unfolds in thirteen movements of increasing musical intensity. ‘The idea is to look towards the sky and see that we are an entity in this expansive universe,’ says the composer. The vocal descriptions, which run parallel to the texts, are beautiful and sublime, and awaken an exquisite joy in the listener.

“The voices of the Lorelei Ensemble project sound in complete union with the inner senses and with a rare faculty that allows us to distinguish different things. Look at the sky, yes, and listen to each of the thirteen tracks that impress us. Cerrone, by means of the Beaufort scale, reveals the excellences of nature that stimulate inner creation. Climate change is a threat to such beauty.” —Carme Miró, Sonograma (Spain)

“A most enjoyable release.” —Vital Weekly (Netherlands)