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Daniel Stabler  

'faccee'

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 2002
four movement work for english horn and string quintet

  • Instrumentation
    cor anglais, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass
  • Programme Note

    ‘faccee’ is composed as a set of loosely related, programmatic movements which portray different moods through the day. ‘faccee’ is intended as a lighter work of chamber music with elements of mystery, humor, charm and satire.

    ‘Dawn’ begins the work slowly, with the darkness and solitude of morning blossoming full fruit into daylight, then relaxing into the day. Movement two, ‘Boogie’, quickens the pace and is akin to experiences while walking the streets of the city. The further one travels, the more activity one encounters until reaching the heart of the city, where a rousing canon surrounds you with people and congested traffic. Then, suddenly, you arrive at your destination and with one last exclamation are in the door.

    ‘Daydream’ is a brief visit into the realm of nostalgia and sentiment, with a pleasant, recurring melody in the english horn and violin. What better for a finale than an old-fashioned ‘galop’ ? This ‘galop’ is, rather, a musical pun on the Viennese version. The ‘Galop’ gives way to the ‘Trio Satirico’ which pokes fun at traditional trios with a duple/triple reconfiguration of 9/8; making for a gawky feel. Then on to the ‘Finale’ where themes from earlier in the day are revisited in a whirlwind finish.

  • Availability

Michael Norris  

14 Islands

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2005
for flute/bass flute, percussion, and prepared harp

Dorothy Ker  

[...and...11]

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2002, r. 2006
for twelve players

  • Instrumentation
    alto flute/piccolo; clarinet in A; bass clarinet/small bamboo chimes to hang on music stand; horn in F/small bamboo chimes to hang on music stand; bass trombone/small bamboo chimes tohang on music stand; percussion: 2 suspended cymbals, hihat, sizzle cymbal, 3 toms, medium bass drum, 3 woodblocks, three sets of maracas, bamboo or wood chimes; harp; violin;viola; cello and bass
  • Programme Note

    In this work, cycles of accumulation and decay move in broad wave-like gestures, recalling the sea. I am fascinated by the potency of the tiniest gesture, syllable or phoneme. Having no ‘meaning’ in itself, the syllable ‘and’ is weightless and transient, yet holds enormous power to link ideas; to create anticipation/momentum. It is like a wave bearing thought towards utterance. …and…11 was composed for, and is dedicated to, Chachi and Lontano.

  • Availability

Eve de Castro-Robinson  

a pink-lit phase

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1997
for flute, viola and harp

James Gardner  

a study for voicing doubts

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 2001
for clarinet and ensemble

  • Instrumentation
    clarinet in A (doubling E flat, C or B flat), bass clarinet, horn, bass trombone, cello, double bass
  • Programme Note

    Many painters — most notably Francis Bacon — have produced series of satellite “studies” around one subject. While these works are complete and interesting in their own right, they also function as commentaries and footnotes on each other, and on the cluster of preoccupations they share, as much as on the “main” paintings for which they are nominally studies. Composers do this sort of thing less often, but it was with this idea of a study in mind that I set out to write a miniature “clarinet concerto” for Gretchen Dunsmore and 175 East some eight years ago.

    The piece makes use of the contrasts between the generally light and lithe clarinet writing and the weightier interjections of the ensemble, and the repeated attempts of the soloist to escape the “gravitational pull” of the ensemble could be seen as one narrative strand in the work.

    While a study for voicing doubts is a complete composition it was also a testing ground for ideas which have been incorporated into Rank and File Movements, a much larger clarinet concerto for Gretchen, which will be finished in early 2010.

    James Gardner

  • Availability

Gillian Whitehead  

Ahotu (O Matenga)

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1984
for chamber ensemble

  • Instrumentation
    flute, trumpet, cello, percussion, 2 keyboard (2 pianos, celesta, harpsichord)
  • Programme Note

    Ahotu is the sixth in a series of instrumental pieces based on the phases of the moon, and refers to the seventh day of the cycle. The entire thirty-day cycle has been used as one of the rhythmic generators of the piece, with vowels and consonants translated into durations to provide the apparently irrational rhythms, which are contrasted in a series of short ensemble or solo sections with either proportional or regular rhythms. The two longest sections are centrally placed. The first, featuring trombone and percussion, presents the language-based material in the percussion; the second, starting with the long piano solo, begins a mensural canon based on the proportional material. However, half-way through this canon, recapitulatory material begins, and subsequent appearances of the canon occur in continually shorter blocks, each transformed very differently. O Matenga, in the title of the piece, refers to the Maori custom, found also in many other civilisations, of providing sustenance for the spirit to the next world after death.

  • Availability

Neville Hall  

and the snow's lace is spread there like sea foam

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 2001
for mixed chamber sextet

  • Instrumentation
    flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, bass trombone, cello and bass
  • Programme Note

    There are two main forces shaping this work, which could be thought of as an “internal” force and an “external” force. The internal force is a process of growth that begins with a complex event heard towards the end of the composition. Variations of this event fan out in all directions across the work’s temporal space, ensuring that every event has a relationship, however distant, to every other event. The detailed crafting of each event, with its constant microscopic fluctuations in pitch and timbre, reflects the detailed activity in a spectral analysis of the title of the piece, a line from one of Ezra Pound’s ‘Cantos’. This analysis is expanded to have the same duration as the composition, so that the entire work is, on one level, an elaboration of a few seconds of spectral activity. The harmonic content of the spectrum is not, however, reflected in this rendering, but rather the morphology, with its evocative twistings, compressions and expansions. The harmonic organisation forms a third structural layer. It originates in the first five odd numbered partials of the natural harmonic series, built on the log ‘G’, an octave below the bass clef. Each partial forms the centre of a narrow band of pitches, from which the “melodic” material is drawn. Ultimately, however, the resulting contrapuntal writing is largely submerged in the surface timbral activity, as the other two structural layers tear at and distort its fabric.

  • Availability

Cheryl Camm  

Antidote to a Requiem

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 1987
for large chamber ensemble

  • Instrumentation
    flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, tenor trombone, violin, viola, cello, bass and percussion (side drum and vibes)

John Elmsly  

Ascend

Duration: 11' 00"
for chamber septet and electronic sounds

  • Instrumentation
    flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, cello, accordion, piano
  • Programme Note

    Over the years I have heard many performances of works by Stockhausen, attended a number of festivals and events dedicated to his music, and always been stimulated, provoked, given sonic food for thought.

    Standout striking events: first hearings of Klavierstucke IX, Mantra, and Stimmung; so very simple references to each of these occur in the musical material of this small homage: the repeated chords, the web of articulated voiced harmonics, and the electronic ring modulation. Combined with these are melodic formulae derived from the name Karlheinz Stockhausen in a gradually rising modular texture. (Note by the composer)

  • Availability

John Rimmer  

At the Base of the Whirlpool

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1999
arranged for bass clarinet and cello