Jonathan Harvey’s Bhakti for Chamber Ensemble and Electronics Serialism, Electronics and Spirituality

Jonathan Harvey’s Bhakti, commissioned by Pierre Boulez in association with IRCAM, has been widely recognized as one of the most influential works of the 1980s and one of the major electroacoustic compositions ever to be produced at IRCAM, Paris. It has been performed worldwide by the most influential ensembles of contemporary music. This study provides the reader with a comprehensive platform of discussion including a rigorous analytical scrutiny of the serial techniques used by the composer, an in-depth exploration of the electroacoustic techniques employed for the realisation of the tape part, a discussion about the composer’s aesthetics and the correspondence between the music and its metaphysical meaning in conjunction with the Rig Veda texts that have inspired the work, an interview with the composer, and a final forum about the work including eminent musicologists, composers and conductors such as Joel Chadabe, Arnold Whittall, James Wood, Eric De Visscher and other leading personalities of the international contemporary music circuit.