25/10/2008

‘I am not here’ from ‘Differences in Demolition’
(Sevda – Monica Brett-Crowther)

‘If I am a Witch’ from ‘Differences in Demolition’
(Mila – Elizabeth McCormack)

‘Paint me, Goya’ from ‘Terrible Mouth’
(The Duchess of Alba – Monica Brett-Crowther)

‘The Piano’ from ‘Sarajevo’
(Lejla – Elizabeth McCormack)

‘River’ from ‘The Piano Tuner’
(Khin Myo – Monica Brett-Crowther)

‘He stands for everything new’ from ‘The Electrification of the Soviet Union’
(Natasha – Elizabeth McCormack)

‘And then we loved’ from ‘The Electrification of the Soviet Union’ (Anna – Monica Brett-Crowther)

‘Be careful of the plates’ from ‘The Electrification of the Soviet Union’ (Mrs Frestein – Elizabeth McCormack)

‘I was wearing a blue woollen dress’ from ‘The Electrification of the Soviet Union’
(Sashka – Monica Brett-Crowther)

‘Ye cannae hide in Govan’ from ‘Queens of Govan’
(Ruby – Elizabeth McCormack)

A lot of my music is fast and loud and I knew from the outset that I wanted to try something different with this piece. After speaking to Simon and listening to trombones more than I'd normally consider healthy, I decided to work less with the razzy side of the trombone and try and write something which is quite stately and slowly evolving.

I was talking about the piece to a friend who mentioned barchans (prounced bahkhan) a kind of sand dune which can physically travel hundreds of metres across the desert, changing the sand within it but always retaining its overall shape. And it seemed appropriate to what I wanted the piece to be.

barchan is in a simple three-part structure and the trombone writing moves from being singular and stubborn to agile and meshed within the texture of the orchestra to forging a return to the simplicity of the beginning. I cut out the higher instruments of the orchestra to create a slightly murky texture and to allow the trombone to sit on top and sound as golden as possible.

Many thanks to Simon Johnson for his help while I was writing barchan.

programme note © Anna Meredith, 2008

This is a set of five orchestral miniatures, a personal diary of days spent in the East.

1. Fanfare, Herzegovina Summer 1995
…Sun, White Stones

Recalls working with Roma children in the last summer of the war in Bosnia. I remember a container encampment among white rocks resonating to the sounds of Balkan children's songs.

2. Rhodope, Bulgaria, Late Spring 1966
…A Hillside, Roma playing in a Café, A Marching Band, A Transistor Radio, The Wind….

A memory of sitting on a hillside in the landscape of Orpheus' birth, and hearing Roma musicians playing in a café below, a marching band approaching along a road through the valley, and the sound of the wind through the grass, carrying fragments of folk music from a transistor radio in a nearby hut.

3. Moscow Early Winter 1981
…First Snow

Describes a tender memory walking through Red Square in the dark and the first snow of the winter. I stopped in front of the bright window of the National restaurant, and could just hear, through the glass, a band playing a folksong - "Va polye beriozka stoyala" - a birch tree stood in a field.

4. Alexanderplatz, Autumn 1970
.…Rain, ‘S’Bahn, Warsaw Train

Recalls passing through Berlin on my way to study in Warsaw. It was grey. It was raining and I remember realising that the sound of the ‘S’Bahn accelerating away had mingled in my head with sounds of orchestral clusters and my imagination of the vivid world of eastern musical modernism I was about to enter.

5. Harz Mountains, The Brocken, 1997
…Around Walpurgis Night, Goethe, Schumann, Berlioz, Gounod
..Ex-Soviet Radio Antennae, Bulgakov

A more recent memory of a visit I made to the Harz Mountains when I was teaching in Hannover. I realised that it was almost Walpurgis Night, and I thought of Goethe, Schumann, Berlioz, Gounod and Bulgakov's Master and Margarita amid the remains of Soviet radio and spy antennae, occupying the last high land before the plains of the West.
programme note © Nigel Osborne, 2008

Transformations I is subtitled "feminist theologies" and is in seven movements, each dedicated to a different female deity and her iconography - from Ancient Egypt, the Sufi tradition, India, Ancient Greece, Hebrew mysticism, Irish mythology and Russian gnosticism.

1. Isis - hawk, sun, morning wind
2. Layla - beauty, mercy, night
3. Lakshmi - light, luck, wisdom
4. Kore - spring, flowers, light
5. Lilith - serpent, screech owl, storm wind
6. The Banshee
7. Sophia - wisdom, dove, stars

[Transformations I was commissioned by Peter Lissauer and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow for Scott Dickinson and Veronika Toth. It has a companion work written for the oboist Virginia Shaw]

programme note © Nigel Osborne, 2008

The title of this piece is a reference to the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Enkidu was fashioned in human form out of clay by the goddess Ninhursag as a match for the heroic but tyrannical king Gilgamesh. But, once created, Enkidu is more brute than man, spending his time with the wild animals of the plains, and unaware of human relations. A female courtesan eventually succeeds in taming the beast in him and in civilizing him. Reborn as a human, it is a physically weaker but intellectually and emotionally more mature Enkidu who is now in a position to take on Gilgamesh.

The piece is written for two orchestral groups of similar instrumental composition who sit facing each other. These groups constantly interact to create a sense of openness and space. This is reinforced by the two grand pianos at opposite corners of the stage that are at times used as resonators for some wind and brass instruments. The latter are played into the open pianos to create echo effects.

My particular interest in musical colour is evident in the various ways the differing timbral possibilities of instruments are exploited. The musical language of the piece is based on the harmonies of Georgian folk music.

The piece opens with isolated sounds and musical gestures. Here and there, elements of melody begin to appear. These various musical elements gradually coalesce to form denser textures. Slowly, more definite harmonies emerge. Over time, melody and harmony take on a leading role, and the final section of the piece is entirely based on these elements.

programme note © Marina Adamia, 2008