orchestra

original composed in 1963;rev 1975(14') & 82

In writing a work for large orchestra, the main problem that presented itself was such: that for all the twentieth century techniques that deal with material (i.e. structure or pitch classes), for the most part we are stuck with the same timbres. Admittedly, composers such as Bela Bartok, Gyorgy Ligeti, and George Crumb have made much progress in the use of instruments and instrumentation. However, apart from some accepted new ways of employing instruments, a romantic size orchestra in the twentieth century still sounds, to my ears, like a romantic size orchestra.

I felt that trying to change this fact was a bit like trying to alter the universe, so instead of attempting to invent a “new” sound, I aimed to highlight the similarity of acoustic sounds between twentieth century and late romantic material (keep in mind this work was written in the last century!!)

Orchestrations of three harpsichord works by J P Rameau

Premiered by the Aarhus Symphony and the British pianists Philip Mead and Stephen Gutman. Much of the source material for the tape part was recorded on a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, and subsequently digitally edited and collaged into the pre-recorded material. The sequence of pitches, E-flat, B-flat, A, E, appears in the tape part at the beginning, and serves as the basis of organization for the entire work. The tape part was realized during a residency at the Danish Institute of Elecroacoustic Music (DEIM) in May 1993. The solo piano parts were written in a concerto-like virtuosic style. The recording (Capstone, SCI), was made in cooperation with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.