Brown Studies

Rain Journal

Wind quintet - flute, oboe, clarinte, bassoon & horn

Textures

JJ vocals and guitar, Mark Richards drums, Puck Lensing double bass, Paul Richardson - harmonica.

You Cry Too - Unreleased

A traditional Swedish Engleska as taught by Gordon Turnbull for www.flutefling.scot

The performance and arrangement is by the class, based on one by Gica Loening and Jenny Gardner. Whistles: Pierre-Marie Costa, Sarah Pain; low whistle: Scott McBirnie; flutes: Louisa Martin, Susanna Bölling, Gordon Turnbull.

Swedish Engelska

Aidan Twomey (bassoon), The Castellain Ensemble
The Warehouse, London
19/3/02

Lament, for bassoon and strings

Underwater Comet (2014-2015)
for string quartet
by Dongryul Lee
3rd movement, "Fractal Boundaries of Night"

Kylwiria Quartet, April 2015, Urbana, IL
Sue deNiem, violin I
Chukyung Park, violin II
Yoobin Lee, viola
Haeju Song, violoncello
Stephen Taylor, conductor

Underwater Comet picks up the place where my last piece, Psychogonia left off, which is based on the alchemical process, Axiom of Maria, a simple precept symbolizing a consecutive numerical dimension from the number 4 to 3 to 2 to 1.  I employed Jung’s article, in which he used the axiom as a metaphor for the psychological development towards individualization, yet in my piece, the One-Lapis Philosophorum is not the Jungian birth of consciousness but the longing for the perfection: Anamnesis.  For this I used the concept of cubic or higher order difference tones, a psychoacoustical phenomenon of how our mind hears a virtual fundamental tone when we hear two different pitches simultaneously.  So the entire piece is a journey from the overtones to the unfathomable (mental) fundamental, which is physically unreachable.  
The piece begins from the stage of the Two, representing the two opposite forces, Coniunctio Oppositorum, Solis et Lunae, logic and emotion, or here the Prelude and Fugue.  The prelude-logic is made up with fractals-the Cantor set is mainly handled with the features of infinite recursive self-similarities and endogenous temporal flow.  The fugue is treated traditionally-quasi intuitively, as Baroque composers did, but in cosmic or quantum levels including diminutions, augmentations, fragmentations, stretti, and so on.
The hidden fundamental, the One-Filius Philosophorum, which only our mind can imagine is hypostasized in the third movement by the asymptotic convergence towards the untouchable D (440/3 Hz) overtone series calculated by infinitely large higher order difference tones which can be projected on the psychoacoustical screen located in the deepest abyss of the human psyche.  
The title Underwater Comet is from a vision which I saw in my dream, a still gleaming azure comet underneath my foot on the frozen surface of the sea, which can be interpreted in the same way that Jung analyzed in his book, The Psychology of the Transference (Die Psychologie der Uebertragung, 1946): “The sea has closed over the king and queen, and they have gone back to the chaotic beginnings, the massa confusa. Physis has wrapped the man of light in a passionate embrace”

Underwater Comet (2014-2015) for string quartet, III Fractal Boundaries of Night

Written, performed and recorded by Rohan Kriwacek 2019.

When The Planet Dies

Photo : Robert Taylor 
http://taylor-photo.co.uk/

Afterthoughts for Schubert D571

A lightly edited improvised piano piece in memory of two special people we lost recently, only a few months apart. Most of the time I am recalling fond memories with joy, but I have found playing the piano very soothing at other times - I think they'd have liked this style of music. Lots of love - rest in peace.

Piano Lament - In Memoriam

LOGOS – Concerto for violoncello and small ensemble (2013) | dedicated to Antara Annemarie Borg and Patrick Tapio Johnson who is the soloist in this recording. 

instrumentation: [8 players] violoncello, oboe clarinet in Bb/bass clarinet in Bb violin viola harp percussion 1: 5 different pitch temple blocks ranging from high to low / 2 differently pitched tam-tams percussion 2: 4 differently pitched suspended cymbals ranging from high to low / 1 timpani drum 29"-28" 

Duration circa 14 minutes

'logos', a condensed concerto for violoncello and small ensemble developed from the solo cello work 'pathos' following an idea to extend the work into a concerto type piece from my partner, Mark. This suggestion quickly took hold of my imagination and I soon began to sketch out the form and instrumentation of the concerto. The material for the solo cello is largely untouched from the original but is broken into sections across the work's duration. The additional music for oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, viola, harp and two percussionists is all new and radically redefines the music from 'pathos' within this context.


Note: For the eagle-eyed among you, you will have noticed that there are differences between the recording and the score version of this piece. The original score to this work was lost after a computer failure in 2013. The new score holds much of the same basic material along with a number of additional strands of new material to thicken out the polyphony in a few areas along with some tidying up of the various voices. So be prepared for discrepancies. I look forward to a new performance from this enhanced score.

For more information, please visit: https://www.marc-yeats.com/logos-2013/

LOGOS for violoncello and ensemble

BA University of Bristol 1992
MMus Royal Academy of Music 1994
PhD University of London 1997
Studied at Tanglewood with Henri Dutilleux 1995 and at Dartington with Peter Sculthorpe 1998
Publishers: UMP, Tetractys

Lament, for bassoon and strings

Andrew McBirnie

Related tracks