Consolations in Travel (2020)

Consolations in Travel is an orchestral manifestation of the musical ephemera consumed by Elms during car journeys with his mother throughout childhood and adolescence. This is the first musical work by Elms that publicly addresses his mental health and its impact upon him and his music. Such 'travels' during his adolescence provided a means of escaping a sometimes emotionally hostile home, and respite from a life-long battle with anxiety depression. The music that Elms and his mother listened to on such journeys were cassette compilations created by Elms. With time, these cassettes have degraded, yielding sonic artefacts that Elms has used directly in the work to underpin the orchestra. The orchestra itself reflects the 'stasis of time' of these cassettes and replicates the mechanical deterioration of them: the imprecise pitch of degraded tape ("flutter") represented in slow, quarter-tone vibrato and glissandi, and the "wow" of trumpet mutes. The work builds towards polymetric solo violins that stuck within their own loops — their own 'cycles of negative thinking' — albeit with a positive, hopeful intent to the harmonic language: the power of overcoming oneself.