Simon Hanes: GARGANTUA

GARGANTUA is scored for a large ensemble, consisting of three drum sets, three electric basses, three trombones, three French horns, and three high voices. The instrumentation first came to composer, Simon Hanes, during a long, beautiful hike in Molde, Norway, with friends during the Molde Jazz Festival in 2022 (when their thrash metal trio Trigger was performing). For several years, the idea of a sextet—three basses and three drum sets—had been in mind, but on that hike, a combination of Nordic forestry, the calm, repetitive act of walking, and the breathtaking vista of 222 mountain peaks from the summit of Varden brought the orchestral vision sharply into focus. The addition of brass and high voices to the low-end ensemble became overwhelmingly inspiring, opening up new orchestrational possibilities.

The title of the work is drawn from Rabelais’ 16th-century pentalogy Gargantua and Pantagruel, a series chronicling the exploits of the giant Gargantua and his son, Pantagruel. Written in a satirical, extravagant, and often vulgar style, the books were considered obscene in their time but are now recognized as masterpieces of comic literature. The composer has long been inspired by the transgressive wit and erudition of Rabelais, whose work opened a psychic door to a centuries-old artistic unconscious. This inspiration fueled the desire to create an ensemble capable of musically exploring the epic, monumental, and bombastic extremes—both terrifying and joyous—that Rabelais conjures so vividly.

In GARGANTUA, Hanes draws directly on the transgressive, over-the-top, occasionally scatological character of Rabelais, which has inspired figures ranging from Alfred Jarry and Aldous Huxley to Aleister Crowley, James Joyce, and Jonathan Swift. Movements such as Knockandrow, Lacerated By A Flying Shard, and Submit To The Fabulosity embrace this spirit, while others—A Series of Waves Tremble in a Sea of Blood, Moirai, and I AM—convey deep reverence, grave awareness of life’s fragility, and profound emotion.

Works like Gigantes, Lucifer/Aureum Chaos, and Hekla 1970 channel what Hanes describes as “ecstatic, explosive terror.” This concept emerged in tandem with a newfound fascination with volcanoes, nurtured during a three-week residency in Volcano, Hawaiʻi, supported by the Shifting Foundation. Time spent wandering the lava fields of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park sparked a deep engagement with volcanism as both a scientific and mythological phenomenon. Volcanoes, with their slow breath, primordial landscapes, and cycles that dwarf human timescales, came to embody the compositional process itself—vast, terrifying, life-giving, and destructive all at once.

The music of GARGANTUA also draws on Renaissance polyphony, Ukrainian Trembita traditions, the long horns of Tibet, 1970s hard rock, metal and hardcore, noise, American minimalism, and early 20th-century European avant-garde practices.

Notably, the music has remained remarkably faithful to its original conception in Hanes’ mind’s ear. Most of the real transformation occurred during the conceptual stages, as sketches from previous years fused with new ideas shaped by research, solitude, and dedicated work. The result is a piece that bridges imagination and reality with striking fidelity.