By:

• Juliet Palmer

Duration:

13' 00"

Instrumentation:

picc111bcl2; 2221; timp 2 perc, hp, strings

Samples

	Score (1055k)	Page 25 - 29	© Juliet Palmer
	Recording (4475k)	Excerpt from performance and documentary of "Swerve" by Juliet Palmer	© Ontario Arts Council

Availability

• This work has 4 scores and a recording

Programme Note

Writing Swerve began as an exercise in reading. A poem caught my ear and lulled me with its rhythm: lilting and stalling, flowing and overflowing the bounds of the line. Just as there are an infinite number of readers, so are there infinite ways of reading a poem. I wanted to capture these subtle variations of interpretation. The words which constitute poetry can be simple and familiar, but new meanings jump out unexpectedly from one reading to the next. I imagined a piece of music which travelled with the reader: pressing forward, pausing, repeating, circling back – a process of rereading in which certain images start to resound, gaining clarity with each recurrence.

Poetry doesn’t reveal itself on the first reading. It is not until we reach the end of the music that we begin to understand what captivates us.

Juliet Palmer

Influences:

• Language and Literature

Performance History

	16 Feb 2004	Performed by The Windsor Symphony conducted by John Morris Russell
	14 Sep 2007	Performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich, as part of the NZSO-SOUNZ Readings 2007
		Hamish McKeich    New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Awards

• NZSO-SOUNZ Readings (2007)
  

  Swerve was performed at the NZSO-SOUNZ Readings in September 2007

• NZSO-SOUNZ-RNZC Recordings (2011)
  

  Swerve by Juliet Palmer was performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with conductor Kenneth Young in September 2011