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Lookup NU author(s): Professor AgustÝn Fernández
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A concert piece featuring the piano in an obbligato capacity. It consists of three movements: 1.Prelude with forebodings 2. Lullaby with valediction 3. Finale with bells. This submission should be considered in conjunction with Trío (2003) of which the present work is a recomposition. The two works illustrate my concern with continuity of narrative across a composer’s output and also between the composer and his predecessors. The works posit the notion that all music is a recomposition of previous music, even where the precedents cannot be recognised. I have woven a web of musical references binding together precedents as far back in time as Bach’s The Art of Fugue and as recent as my works The Wheel (1993), Approaching Melmoth (2000) and A to Z (2001 version). All the references are held together by expressive intentions determined by the circumstances in which the new work was being written, in particular the preparations for the Iraq war and then the outbreak of war. The range of situations being dealt with demanded dramatic contrasts that by the third movement had outgrown the medium of a trio. While the pressure to carry these ideas exercises a salutary exertion on composer and performers alike, the fact remains that the Trío alone does not realise the material’s psychological complexities to the full. Hence the need for an expanded version, for whose title a line was borrowed from Franz Tamayo’s celebrated poem Balada de Claribel, in the original Spanish una música escondida. The larger forces enabled a fuller realisation where colours are more varied and more sharply defined, harmonies are clarified, textures are expanded and the violin cadenza at the opening of the third movement is replaced by a more expansive piano cadenza.
Composer(s): Fernández A
Publication type: Musical Composition
Publication status: Published
Year: 2004
Publisher: Northern Sinfonia
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
Type of Work: Orchestral score
URL: http://www.agustinfernandez.com
Notes: The publication details given refer to the first performance. It was given by Northern Sinfonia conducted by Peter Wiegold, with pianist Kate Thompson. The title is a quotation from the poem Balada de Claribel by Franz Tamayo.
