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Poems on
Music Themes
The
'Aranjuez' Adagio
As
a sure Spanish
brow
Surveys, the
seventh
fret
Concedes.
The first
finger
Sensing nylons
clement
Tension, prepares
the
‘barre.’
Third and
fourth
Make Obeisance
And fall into
position.
Eager for tone,
Thenar eminence
Confirming beneath
the
neck
Assures
The right
hand,
Now ‘sul
tasto’
readied.
And…
In that
moment,
Perhaps
In the first few
rows
One hears,
As if it
were…
That ‘pre-empting
ring of
vinyl’
Bleeding ahead of
play,
Ghosting
An Iberian
‘arpeggio’.
Symphony of
the Birds
The Symphony of the Birds
features Australian bird sounds of the Central Coast region as the
source material for all sounds in the work. It was an obvious
choice for Chris who was raised on the Coast and knows and loves
these birds. It also dovetailed nicely into the
commissioner's request to 'keep it local'. The composer
recorded and notated various bird sounds over many months. In the
piece he links some together to form broader melodic themes.
Conversely, other bird calls and bird songs appear as a one-off.
Birds that feature include the butcher-bird, the lorikeet, the
wattle-bird, the koel, various finches and wrens, galahs and
plovers among others. For the most part Chris uses the bird sounds
'as they are' without any 'melodic treatment' that composers
usually pride themselves on.
The piece is in three movements
being:
1) First
Light: essentially a
sonata complete with a slow prelude of two minutes (First Light),
then our A and B themes, development, recapitulation and
coda.
2) Parrot Fun, then
Fugue: This movement is
in two sections, the first which dissolves traditional form (which
is harmony centred) in favour of presenting a 'bush texture'. We
hear just melodic fragments and reverb (through the writing of
'space' into the music). The second section of this movement is a
complex fugue (very much harmonic centred). This movement features
strings and harp.
3) Canopy Delights and Last
Light: This is the
'movement of contrasts'. From the initial 'spiritoso' theme, to a
central 'adagio', to two distinct brassy climaxes to a a
'meditative mysterioso' and finally a short 'chorale' to close the
work (being the Last Light).
The composer also uses several
unusual 'performance directions' and 'tempo indications' in the
piece. Among these are 'With the wind' (similar to allegro),
'Albatross big' (similar to grandioso), 'With fire flight' (taken
from a poem about birds by I.Robin), 'Ferny glades' (a 'lush'
indication), 'Squakato' (squaking), 'Gliding' (for sempre legato),
'Sun-Kissed' (an allargando section), 'Crowning', and the list goes
on.
The 'Ground
Sounds and Sky Sounds Approach to Composition and
Orchestration'
Furthermore, in this work Chris
uses what he terms 'ground sounds', 'sky sounds' and
'near-melodies' (original terms). He has identified these as
integral elements of the natural Australian sound-world. The ground
sounds are sustain, repetitive device, non-development of idea -
essentially the static. They are present through the use of
ostinati, the converging and blurring of chord changes, a
heightened aspect of tone (at times over and above melody and
harmony), and also 'melod-ercussive' thumps, scratching, breaks,
and bumps that whilst integral are not necessarily prominent nor
developmental in a Western-music sense. The sky sounds are 'sky
reverb' and 'sky amplification' which occur naturally under the
skies. Chris has cleverly rendered these sounds into the piece
through a heightened attention to texture, effectively at times
orchestrating both reverb and amplification into the music. The
'near-melodies' are the 'melodic fragments', 'abandoned
improvisations' and 'hints towards melody' that are the stuff of so
many bird sounds. Simply, in some sections of the work the melodies
do not have the opportunity to 'take wing' (excuse the pun).
Nevertheless, this is balanced with a fair element of classicizing
the material into readily understood themes and contrasting
sections. Chris hopes that you hear the bush and the birds in this
piece, his Symphony of the Birds.
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