Video still from live performance © Tate 2005

Secret Cheese

Eric Roth was commissioned to make a new 'aural' score for The Sound of Heaven and Earth.

Performance recording: Secret Cheese by Eric Roth
Copyright for the content of this work remains with the original author/s ©
See below to download composer's instructions and individual scores

Secret Cheese is about the goods that you keep hidden most of the time. It's also a musical-theatrical version of what their public manifestations might be like. It asks the players to engage in group interaction, following and growing an exotic and volatile (and flexible) musical shape for the ensemble. The ensemble follows a verbal script with great flexibility as to the precise timing of events - and, of course, the fittings of the descriptions - but maintains an order and proportions. Ultimately, the shape of Secret Cheese is the ranges of interpretation of the respective directions, a highly complex and zizzy area.

Eric Roth, 2005

Secret Cheese is dedicated to Seth Kim-Cohen and the memory of Pearl Roth.

Eric Roth provided each ensemble member with a unique - spoken word score, listened to via a CD player and headphones.

Instructions and scores by Eric Roth

Instrumentation included: Bass by John Edwards, Bass Saxophone by Tony Bevan, Electronics by Andrew Morgan, Electronics and Flutes by David Toop, Harp by Rhodri Davies and Cello by Neil Heyde. The ensemble was put together by Andrew Morgan.

Produced in collaboration with Tate Modern, the Goethe Institute London and the London Consortium.