Night Thoughts (2005)
Wu MAN
Born 1963
A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER

The piece was inspired by the 12th Century pipa mood (scale) from the Dun Huang cave in Western part of China. I especially chose to compose in this ancient mood because I find that I would give listeners a very different musical experience of my instrument. Both pipa and percussion in this piece are based on pre-structured improvisation, so that the performers always have a fresh idea every time they play it.

AKASA: “Formless Spiral”(2010)
Chinary UNG
Born 1942

A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER

I think of my new work for pipa, viola, cello, piano, and percussion as expressing two worlds: that of limited space—physical space with a localized sound and sonority; and infinite space—conceptual, spiritual space. This idea is best expressed by the title: the Pali word “Akasa.” The subtitle, “Formless Spiral,” alludes to the fact that this is another in my series of “spiral” works, begun in the 1980s, that use this word in their titles; after a hiatus of eight years, about five years ago, I again took up this theme, and “Formless Spiral” is my 13^th in the series. Musically, such spirals have to do with how sounds or phrases continually regenerate themselves, come back on themselves, all the while propelling forward and backward. In AKASA, even though I have abandoned the idea of an overt musical spiral, the concept remains; only now it is invisible, like energy or other forces. As I have done for the last decade or so, I incorporated a variety of vocalizations in AKASA: “Formless Spiral”; for example, in addition to playing their instruments, members of the ensemble Real Quiet use speech and chanting; the vocalizations of the pipa player and the violist include whistling, chanting, and spoken and sung texts consisting mainly of phonemes and syllables—with some in Pali and Sanskrit, and, here and there, phrases or words in Khmer. For me, the sound of music is the link between me and the audience—a space where emotions can be elicited and felt, and I hope that listeners can relate my music to something in their own lives. But art is imperfect, no matter how hard one strives; and I would call myself lucky if I could attain perfect imperfection.

Epitaphs for String Quintet (2010)
Brett DEAN
Born 1961
NOTES FROM THE COMPOSER

Epitaphs was jointly commissioned by three parties and will be premièred at the 2010 Cheltenham Festival in the UK. I saw in this commission the chance to explore the extended sonorities and textural possibilities of the “string-quartet-plus-one” formation, which so fascinated Mozart, Schubert and Brahms before me - and led to some of their finest and most profound utterances in chamber music. The work was especially informed by the very particular colouristic changes that arise by doubling the viola section, with the pair of violas frequently operating as a counterpart to the string quartet’s regular pair of violins.

However, writing this work simultaneously offered me the opportunity to pay homage to several people, both personal friends and professional colleagues, who passed away during a relatively short space of time in the years 2008 and 2009.

Despite the sombre tone of the work’s subject matter and purpose, it’s intended that this suite of five memorial pieces be heard as much as a celebration of personal qualities, characteristics and achievements as it is also an expression of loss and contemplation; of energetic lives fulfilled as well as of lives cut short.

I. Dorothy Porter, Australian poet (1954-2008)

Sniff the air. Test the weather. Smell the storm of burning feathers; smell the storm of our last and final flight together. The day we go; The place we go; Only I will know; Only I will know.

Dorothy Porter, from “The Bluebird of Death”.
(Published in “The Bee Hut”, Black Inc. Books, Melbourne, 2009)

II. Lyndal Holt, Australian solicitor, academic, and author (1962-2008)

Cancer forces us to recognise what is important in this earthly world. And most people come to believe that it is their relationships that matter most. I so appreciate everyone who is willing to take my hand and walk a little way on my cancer journey with me. Sometimes they have to hold me, a lot of the time we laugh.

Lyndal Holt, from a newsletter of the Cancer Support Centre-Jacaranda Lodge, Sydney Adventist Hospital, Autumn 2007

III. Jan Diesselhorst, Berlin Philharmonic cellist, (1954-2008)

Amongst his colleagues of the famous “12 Cellists” he was respectfully and affectionately known as “The Philosopher”: a highly educated humanist and grappa connoisseur who never entered the warm-up room of the Philharmonie without a cultured book in his hand.

From obituary, Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (7/02/09)

IV. Betty Freeman, American arts patron, philanthropist and photographer (1921-2009); György Ligeti, Hungarian- born Austrian composer (1923-2006)

On the business card that Betty Freeman gave me when we first met in 2000, she endearingly referred to herself as “Girl Photographer”. To have been a fly on the wall in Los Angeles in 1993 when Betty photographed György Ligeti, overhearing the conversations between two such irrepressible personalities, would have been truly fascinating.

V. Richard Hickox, British conductor and music director (1948-2008)

Former Artistic Director of Opera Australia, 2005-2008. Richard was to have conducted the première of my first opera, Bliss.

Ecstasy touched me…I slid between the spaces in the sky And smelt things living and dying in the valleys of the forest.

Amanda Holden, from the libretto for Bliss.

Brett Dean, Sydney, March, 2010

Intimate Decisions (1997)

This piece for solo viola was commissioned by the German violist (and my Berlin Philharmonic colleague) Walter Küssner as part of a CD project of works for solo viola planned with a Canadian recording company for the 1998/99 season.

As the title implies, this is music of a private nature, and I must say I found the task of writing a work for a single string instrument strangely akin to writing a personal letter or having an intense discussion with a close friend. The piece opens with a short series of single motives: a minor 3rd, a major 7th,and a perfect 4th, all very distant in character, then a more assertive minor 6th - minor 9th motive, followed later by a chain of oscillating harmonics skating across the lower strings. Slowly these separate elements start reacting to one another, and the mood changes, developing from the distant nature of the opening to something more freely rhapsodic and determined, then evolving further through moments of sudden drama, anger, flighty virtuosity or even calm and tenderness.

After exploring the implications of this “conversation” and sinking to an uneasy quietness, the viola´s ensuing whisperings gather momentum, leading to an impassioned climax. The aftermath of this peak leaves an unresolved, gently rocking echo of what has been “discussed” in the guise of the harmonics from the opening.

The name Intimate Decisions comes from a painting by my wife, the Australian painter Heather Betts. I gave the first performance on the 21st of June, 1997 at the International Chamber Music Festival in Leicester, England. The first performance in Australia followed a week later in the South Melbourne Town Hall at a recital of the National Academy of Music.

© 1997 by Brett Dean.

String Quartet No. 3
Christopher ROUSE
Born 1949

A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER

I have spent most of my time composing music for orchestra, and my chamber output is resultantly rather small. Indeed, my third string quartet of 2009 is my first chamber work since 1996 (my septet Compline) and only my second since my 1988 String Quartet No. 2.

The wonderful Calder Quartet, who have championed my first two quartets with both enthusiasm and mastery and have recorded them as well, asked me compose a new one for them in 2006, though it took several years before I was able to begin work on it.

I have often heard in my mind’s ear what I call “another music,” a music whose difficulty and complexity would render it impractical for orchestral use, considering the size of the orchestral apparatus and the limited rehearsal time available for preparing works for that medium. Having duly warned the Calders of what I intended, I set about to try putting down on paper what this “other music” might sound like.

My String Quartet No. 3 was the result. The central focus of what I was hearing was a succession of extremely convulsive and unpredictable gestures rendered by the players in rhythmic unison — that is, these complex rhythms would have to be performed totally together by the four players: no small feat. The work is thus made up primarily of these rhythmically monodic ideas, though they sometimes do spin out of control into a series of imitative gestures. Though perhaps unpalatable to some, my overall description of the piece would be something akin to a schizophrenic having a grand mal seizure. This, at least, was the image to which I continually referred as I composed the music.

The twenty-minute score is dedicated to the Calder Quartet and, after a slow introduction, follows a standard fast-slow-fast ordering of sections played without pause. The music is staggeringly difficult to play, and I believe this to be my most challenging and uncompromising work to date.

© 2010 by Christopher Rouse

These program notes can be reproduced free of charge with the following credit:

Reprinted by kind permission of Christopher Rouse