By:

• Michael Norris

Availability

• This work has a score and 2 Media on Demand

Media on Demand

Programme Note

In visual arts, the technique of sgraffito is the deliberate scratching of one layer of paint or plaster to reveal the underlying layer. Although used in the Renaissance, this technique was developed in the twentieth century most notably by American artist Cy Twombly. While this orchestral work does not attempt to exactly translate Twombly’s canvases into sound, it does take as a point of departure some of the shape and motion of the foregrounded “scratchings” juxtaposed against a more static, colour-field background. There is also an increasing (but unrequited) desire of the music to escape the inexpressive “frame” of background harmonies and erupt into something altogether more rhapsodic.

Commissioned:

Commissioned by SWR (Sudwestdeutsche Rundfunk)

Performance History

	17 Oct 2010	Performed by the Radio Kamerfilharmonie Hilversum under the baton of Peter Eötvös as part of Donaueschinger Musiktage 2010, at the Bartok Hall in the Donauhallen Donauhallen, Germany