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burlesques mécaniques is a rather extroverted collection of grotesque miniatures whose characters are not people or animals but dances. These dances have been mechanised, electrified, and often obscured by their own rhythmic impulse. Old forms and formulaic tropes are given new identities, freed from the confines of metric stability and the expectation that they be “danceable”. The essentially mechanical, artificial aspect of music (and of art in general?) is embodied in the piano, here a brittle, seedy protagonist whose string limbs hover and flail about it. Conflicting rhythms dominate the surface, oscillating between insistent repetition and mad, angular flourishes. The generally jerky, muscular rhythmic material is periodically frozen throughout the work, most strikingly in the ninth movement (chain). Here a string of rich, impressionistic chords briefly reveals an alternative, interior world which is then rudely dismissed in an almost haphazard finale.

• Taylor: burlesques mécaniques; computer set 

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“Do or do not; there is no try.” – Yoda

figments represents a series of “tries”: attempts to remember, recast and reconfigure an earlier work, also called figments, that was lost or destroyed early in 2012. The only surviving material of the original is contained in a small number of photographs taken while composing. These photographs offered triggers for building up material in a non-linear fashion, a collage of moments.

In this new work, every so often a cohesive narrative emerges, but equally often the train of thought is obscured or lost, only to be taken up again, remembered differently or approached from a new angle. The task of completion and reconciliation of competing and conflicting materials is eventually abandoned, leaving tangents to integrate and disintegrate freely, the initial goals perhaps concealed or missed in the remembering.

To me, “do or do not” is an oversimplification bordering on authoritarianism; “trying”, while transient and rich with flaw and slippage, is the only tangible and realistic form of action here.

• Alex Taylor: figments - hardcopy score & parts 

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• Alex Taylor: figments - downloadable PDF 

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• Ross Harris: Fjärran - hardcopy score 

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When I think of a piano trio, I immediately think of a transparent interplay of lines. This has something to do with the fact that the instruments that make up the modern piano trio are not particularly homogeneous, unlike say, a string quartet. It’s as if somebody had strewn some line drawings of simple three dimensional objects on a photographer’s lightbox, all on top of one another, resulting in an unexpected and strangely beautiful assemblage.

• Margetic: Lightbox; computer set 

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• Margetic: Lightbox; computer set 

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• Taylor: quasi concertino; computer set 

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• Taylor: quasi concertino; computer set 

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• Rachael Morgan: Refracted White - downloadable PDF 

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• Rachael Morgan: Refracted White - hardcopy score & parts 

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‘Restlessly, While the Leaves are Blowing’ is one of many possible, yet not quite adequate, translations into English of the last line of Rilke’s poem Herbsttag: “Unruhig wandern, wenn die blätter treiben”. This linguistic decay, and the fact that we have to accept the inherent imperfection in any translation (including any translations of this programme note), is reminiscent of Rilke’s description of Autumn. Though you could say that, just as Autumn will eventually give way to other seasons, translation adds another layer of meaning; a different way of understanding and interpreting, serving to enrich the original.
KM

• Karlo Margetic: Restlessly, While the Leaves are Blowing - hardcopy score & parts 

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Save Yourself is a further development of my preoccupation with sonic analogues to visual stimuli. In this work, I imagine a series of monohued “colour fields” which have been overwritten with surface figurations and gestures.

The accordion and melodicas provide the cyclical progression of harmonic fields—subtly coloured by gliding sine tones—whilst the winds and strings provide the aggressive gestural activity. The contrapuntal, textural writing gradually decays into more syncronized figures towards the end of the piece, whilst at the same time developing the noise-based timbres from the very opening.

• Michael Norris: Save Yourself - hardcopy score 

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• Michael Norris: Save Yourself; video 

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• Taylor: small loop; computer set 

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Tag: as in the children’s game; the soloist is ‘it’.

Release: a release for the composer (and his performers) from previous modes of engagement with small ensemble music that have almost always required the services of a conductor. In this work perpetual, conventionally written soli are passed between the players. When not playing soli, musicians are reacting loosely to the solo line with a series of gestures; the soloist becomes a conductor of sorts.

Tag and release: from recreational fishing, in the interests of research and conservation.

The work is continuous but divided into three sections.

soli 1-7: introductory (loose) palindrome
soli 8-14: suddenly noise-based…gradual re-emergence of pitch
soli 18-20: intensification

With thanks to the MCL, the Silo String Quartet, Barrie Webb and Jack Body.

• Chris Watson: tag (and release); computer set 

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• Watson: tag (and release); computer set 

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• Chris Watson: tag (and release); audio 

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