Work
Anacrocosmos
for flute (alto flute), trumpet and clarinet (bass clarinet)
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About
Anacrocosmos, written in 1972 in Berlin, a divided city just becoming used to being surrounded by an impenetrable wall and having acres of barbed wire and gun-towers across avenues and lakes, was requested for performance by some of the most famous performers of the German musical intelligentsia. Mine was a response to the barrenness of the landscape and to the intense life of its musicians.
I had just written a work for the previous Darmstadt Summer School, Musik für drei Hörer, which was very verbal but at the same time also very quiet, using only the consonantal portion of the texts: perhaps it is the quietest piece in the world. It received the Darmstadt Kranichsteiner prize for the best new work of the year. Anacrocosmos explored a similar eschewing of normally important musical elements, this time the notes themselves, leaving just gesture and noise.
It was first played at the following Darmstadt Summer School, and was awarded a composition award from the city of Darmstadt and a composer’s residency at Boswil, in Switzerland.
– GB
Performance history
25 Jul 2015: Performed by Rebecca Steel (alto flute), Reuben Chin (alto saxophone) and Debbie Rawson (bass clarinet) at the Gillian Bibby: A Life of Composition concert, Adam Concert Room, Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music, Wellington.