CSM 25: Samsara Australian Ensemble
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Item Open Access Bozidar Kos: Catena 2 (1992)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1992) Composer: Don Banks; Collins, Geoffrey; Vivian, Alan; Bollard, David; Hall, Dimity; Morozova, Irina; Smiles, Julian"Bozidar Kos (b. 1934) is a widely esteemed Australian composer who was born in May, 1934, in Novo Mesto in what was formerly Yugoslavia. He is at present lecturer in composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (formerly NSW State Conservatorium). Catena 2 was commissioned from him by the Australia Ensemble resident at the University of New South Wales, with financial assistance from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council. Bozidar Kos began studying music at the age of six and later pursued intensive studies in cello and piano at the state school of music in Novo Mesto. After finishing high school he enrolled in the faculty of technology at the University of Ljubljana. At the same time he was appointed a teacher of cello and music theory at the state school of music and as a cellist in the local orchestra. He became actively interested in jazz, formed and led an eighteenpiece jazz orchestra and toured western European countries between 1959 and 1964 withasmalljazzgroup. He migrated to Australia in 1965 (becoming an Australian citizen in 1974) and in 1971 enrolled in music at the University of Adelaide, starting to compose seriously while taking composition as a principal study in his BMus course. Bozidar Kos has earned a number of important prizes and grants for composition and has had his instrumental music commissioned and performed by leading ensembles here and overseas, including Synergy, The Seymour Group, Flederman and the Australian Contemporary Music Ensemble. Flederman played his Three Movements for flute, trombone, piano and percussion extensively during its 1983 tour of the United States. His scores, noted for their fine and careful workmanship, have been recorded and broadcast many times in Australia and on British, German and former Yugoslavian radio. The composer writes: Catena 2 is the second of two compositions in which the word catena [meaning chain, succession or series] refers to a particular form of the work. It consists of closely connected series of segments that often unite through some common musical idea into larger sections. There are altogether twenty-one such segments, of which four are further subdivided into two parts each. The segments are differentiated from one another by instrumentation and by musical content. Every segment is played by a different instrumental combination, except for segments eight and sixteen, which employ all six members of the ensemble and correspond to the two climaxes of the work. Twelve other segments are trios, one is quartet, and six are quintets. Each segment is distinguished by a specific musical idea or a set of ideas that is repeated many times within the segment and develops at the same time. Some instruments that continue to play from one segment to the next also continue to develop musical ideas played by them in a previous segment (or segments), while the other instruments introduce new ideas. In this way a number of segments form what can be perceived as larger sections. At the same time these sections may overlap as well. Segments thus represent individual links in a series of musical events, but at the same time they are related to one another through some material held in common. Developmental processes in the material are able to continue in this way from segment to segment or section to section. The last four segments recapitulate - though in varied form - the material of the first few segments. Durations of individual segments are in the proportions 2:3, 3:5, 5:8 etc to each other. These are the proportions of the Fibonacci numerical series. This series also controls a large part of the rhythmic organisation of the central segment of the work, together with other asymmetrical and additive rhythmic structures, characteristic of many of my other compositions. [BK] The general character of the music is nervous, precise and fine in texture, sometimes combining long lines of melody with an aviary of detached, birdsong-like comments and reactions." -- Roger CoveilItem Open Access Gordon Kerry: Sonata Da Camera (1991)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1991) Composer: Larry Sitsky; Collins, Geoffrey; Vivian, Alan; Bollard, David; Olding, David; Morozova, Irina; Smiles, Julian"Gordon Kerry (b. 1961) is a Melbourne-born and trained composer who has been making a steadily growing reputation for himself from a Sydney base in the last few years. His Sonata da Camera was commissioned forthe Australia Ensemble by Musica Viva Australia with financial assistance from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council. Kerry has proved his worth during his periods of residence with several musical organisations in Australia and abroad. In 1990 he wrote a song cycle and this Sonata da Camera before becoming, later in the same year, composer-in-residence with Musica Viva's Educational Performance Project. He has made determined and substantial forays into choral, operatic, orchestral and chamber genres. His chamber opera, Medea, had its first Melbourne and Sydney performances in 1993. It had subsequent seasons in Washington, Canberra and Berlin. Gordon Kerry writes: As its title implies, Sonata da Camera has no extramusical associations. Having written mainly choral and vocal music in the previous year, I took the opportunity to explore some purely abstract concerns. For instance, it seemed appropriate in writing for an ensemble whose repertoire is as catholic as is the Australia Ensemble's, to produce a work which engaged with some aspects of that repertoire; it seemed no less appropriate to conceive of a work in which the unusual instrumentation of the Ensemble and the virtuosity of all its members might be explored. The piece is in two movements, played without a break. The first, fast movement has a kind of sonata design. Its first subject consists of two elements: a rhythmically unsettled chromatic motive played by the strings which is complemented by a more diatonic falling figure in the winds. The tonal focus of the first subject is G minor, the key of some of my favourite chamber music (Mozart, Brahms and Shostakovich come to mind). The second subject contrasts in several ways: its tempo is slightly slower, its rhythm regular, its melodies more modal, and its tonal focus is on Band G sharp (forthat Schubertian effect). These elements are developed in a section of contrasting moods and tonalities, and there is a recapitulation of classical proportions. The second movement is much looser in design, and much slower in tempo. After a short transition the piano introduces the remote tonality of C sharp, from which the music explores some of the available duo and trio possibilities. Tempo modulations lead to a brief reminiscence of the first movement. The final section is a homage to the sort of contrapuntal music beloved of the Tallis Scholars, the function of which is to purge the music gradually of any dissonance and return it to a serene G major/minor. [GK] To the composer's description of the first movement it may be helpful to add that the persistent chromatic figure forthe strings in the first movement is usually tightly constricted in range and that the flute and clarinet seem to be soaring and dipping in free space by contrast. Gruff articulation of the first movement's scrubbing figure helps to animate the opening movement. The composer points out that the metronome markings in the score determine the ratio between the tempos of its sections and must be strictly observed. The score was dedicated to the late Phillip Henry, then artistic director of Musica Viva Australia." -- Roger CoveilItem Open Access Don Banks: Divertimento (1951) - Rondo: Allegro Con Brio(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1951) Composer: Don Banks; Collins, Geoffrey; Vivian, Alan; Bollard, David; Hall, Dimity; Morozova, Irina; Smiles, Julian"Pastorale: Andante Rondo: Allegro con brio Don Banks (1923-1980), trained as both a jazz musician and as a composer of concert music, helped set standards of professionalism among Australian composers during his years as a freelance composer based in London and, after his final return to live and work in Australia in 1973, as composer, teacher and administrator in this country. He became chairman of the Music Board of the Australia Council and took charge of composition teaching successively at the Canberra School of Music and the New South Wales (now Sydney) Conservatorium. Above all, he remained a musician's musician, noted for his clarity of technique and his thorough understanding of compositional craft. In his Divertimento for flute and string trio, composed in 1951 and among the earliest works in his catalogue, he writes elegantly for flute and the standard string trio (violin, viola, cello). The Pastorale title of the first movement is matched, in traditional fashion, with the 6/8 metre long associated in western music with a pastoral style (see Purcell, Monteverdi, Handel, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart, among many others). Reflecting Banks's exploration of serial technique at the time he wrote the piece, the use of chromaticism manages to suggest a certain degree of freedom and spontaneity while being at all times carefully controlled. The looped, twining line of the flute part begins by being almost indolently graceful but later takes on a degree of urgency before returning to its initial mood. In the fast Rondo of the second movement, the flute's solo status is asserted from the very first phrase. While the strings have plenty of lively and interesting things to do, the flute meets technical challenges comparable with those of a concerto soloist." -- Roger CoveilItem Open Access Don Banks: Divertimento (1951) - Pastorale: Andante(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1951) Composer: Don Banks; Collins, Geoffrey; Vivian, Alan; Bollard, David; Hall, Dimity; Morozova, Irina; Smiles, Julian"Pastorale: Andante Rondo: Allegro con brio Don Banks (1923-1980), trained as both a jazz musician and as a composer of concert music, helped set standards of professionalism among Australian composers during his years as a freelance composer based in London and, after his final return to live and work in Australia in 1973, as composer, teacher and administrator in this country. He became chairman of the Music Board of the Australia Council and took charge of composition teaching successively at the Canberra School of Music and the New South Wales (now Sydney) Conservatorium. Above all, he remained a musician's musician, noted for his clarity of technique and his thorough understanding of compositional craft. In his Divertimento for flute and string trio, composed in 1951 and among the earliest works in his catalogue, he writes elegantly for flute and the standard string trio (violin, viola, cello). The Pastorale title of the first movement is matched, in traditional fashion, with the 6/8 metre long associated in western music with a pastoral style (see Purcell, Monteverdi, Handel, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart, among many others). Reflecting Banks's exploration of serial technique at the time he wrote the piece, the use of chromaticism manages to suggest a certain degree of freedom and spontaneity while being at all times carefully controlled. The looped, twining line of the flute part begins by being almost indolently graceful but later takes on a degree of urgency before returning to its initial mood. In the fast Rondo of the second movement, the flute's solo status is asserted from the very first phrase. While the strings have plenty of lively and interesting things to do, the flute meets technical challenges comparable with those of a concerto soloist." -- Roger CoveilItem Open Access Carl Vine: Miniature IV (1988)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1988) Composer: Carl Vine; Collins, Geoffrey; Vivian, Alan; Bollard, David; Olding, David; Morozova, Irina; Smiles, Julian"Carl Vine's (b. 1954) Miniature IV was commissioned by the Australia Ensemble resident at The University of New South Wales and completed on 2 May 1988. The Ensemble performed it for the first time on 7 May as part of its tour of Australian capital cities for Musica Viva. The work's European premiere took place at the Ensemble's Wigmore Hall recital in London later that month with the composer present. The Ensemble's invitation to Carl Vine to write the piece was made possible by a commissioning scheme strongly supported by the Performing Arts Board, Australia Council. Vine is something of a prodigy among Australian composers. He writes with exceptional resourcefulness and assurance and gives the impression of having unlimited technique for whatever purpose he has in mind. He is also a gifted pianist and has been a consistent and dedicated performer of Australian contemporary music. He was born in Perth in 1954, began learning to play the cornet at the age of four and a half and laterstudied trumpet and piano. His interest in the trumpet waned when he was fifteen, and he began to devote himself to composing. After starting university studies in physics, his overriding interest in composition led him to a variety of amateur and semi-professional engagements with local theatre companies and an extended collaboration with the West Australian Ballet Company. In 1975 he was involved in the Australia Council's training scheme for young composers which, among other things, took him to Melbourne and Adelaide and convinced him that he should try to make composition a career. He found work in Sydney as rehearsal pianist for the Sydney Dance Company. In 1976 he was sponsored by the Australia Council in attending the Gulbenkian summer school in choreography in England. He has continued to work with great skill in writing for dancers. One of his earliest major successes was the score of the ballet Poppy, created around the life and times of Jean Cocteau. The composer writes: Miniature IV is a single-movement work in three sections. The first grows from the scalar movement at the opening, progressing freely through a series of continuous variations. This leads directly to the central section, which is marked by an argumentative duet between flute and clarinet. This settles, in turn, into a meditative clarinet solo commented upon by flute intrusions. A faster duet leads to the moto perpetuot\na\e. Throughout the work, the ensemble is divided into three groups: the violin, viola and cello form a ripieno accompanying trio; the piano, occasionally soloistic, most frequently functions in an accompanying or 'commenting' fashion; while, the top of the ensemble, flute and clarinet either alternate or function jointly as a solo unit. The piece is based quite conspicuously, therefore, on the middle-to-late baroque concerto model. [CV] Miniature IVis typical of its composer in its generally agreeable and carefully calculated texture, coolly lyrical shapeliness, masterly interplay of metre and accent, and in its passages of brilliant, driving liveliness." -- Roger CoveilItem Open Access Anthology of Austraian Music on Disc: CSM: 25 Samsara Australian Ensemble(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University)Item Open Access Larry Sitsky: Samsara - Trio No. 6 (1993)(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, 1993) Composer: Larry Sitsky; Collins, Geoffrey; Vivian, Alan; Bollard, David; Olding, David; Morozova, Irina; Smiles, Julian"Larry Sitsky (b. 1934) represents one aspect of a process of cultural enrichment that has taken place in Australia in recent years, in particular since the migrations that preceded World War II or stemmed from the disruption of armed conflict elsewhere in the world. He was born in Tientsin, China, of Russian parents and was already an obviously gifted pianist when he arrived in Australia in 1951, in his midteens. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium with Winifred Burstonand later with Egon Petri in San Francisco. He is heir to the tradition of virtuoso pianism descending from Liszt and, through his student experiences with Petri, acquired a fervent interest in the music and aesthetics of Busoni which he has never lost. As a pianist of formidable powers, Sitsky has given public performances and made recordings of much music beside his own. His composition of an extensive catalogue of works, many of them of major dimensions, has brought him wide respect among musicians. Public awareness of his work took a major step forward in 1993 with the first production at Sydney Opera House by The Australian Opera of his large-scale opera, The Golem. His new Samsara - Trio No. 6 was commissioned by the Australia Ensemble with help from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council. The composer writes: The initial poetic impetus for this work came while I was reading about the Buddhist concept of Samsara, the wheel of life. I 'saw' a flashing wheel, and 'heard' the sound of quick descending scales, the opening gesture of the piece. At this point, non-musical input into the Trio ceased. The raw material for this work couldn't be simpler: the quick descending scales of the opening, followed by the repeatednote pattern thundered out soon after by the piano. These two ideas are constantly referred to as the Trio unfolds. Naturally, subsidiary ideas emerge from such simple beginnings. The sequence of events which the listeners can follow would be something like this: 1st section (first movementa//egro): fairly rugged and kaleidoscopic, setting out the raw materials. This section is interrupted by a short cadenza for clarinet. A cadenza for flute and clarinet, with use of slides and swells, leads into the 2nd section (slow movement) .This section is also interrupted by a short piano cadenza. The 3rd section (scherzo) likewise features a cadenza, this time by the flute. The 4th section (finale) serves as a recapitulation, and is easily recognizable by the return of the opening scale patterns. The flute gives way to the piccolo, which allows a triumphant affirmation of the scale figures to sweep across the instrumental ranges, this time upward and in a kind of A major. The score is prefaced by a quotation from William Blake which seemed appropriate, saying something about the lonely existence of the writer (or composer). [LS] The style of Samsara is bold and direct. The feeling for instrumental theatre with which Sitsky establishes the character of each section and clinches the return of his opening figuration is almost brutal in its physical excitement and effectiveness." -- Roger Coveil