Izumi Kimura and Nick Roth, October 2012.

Piano and Saxophone Sonata

This recording was made by the Con Tempo String Quartet, in a workshop at the Irish Composition Summer School 2011.

The Prelude of this work was composed with quite a simple structure; three chords, fulfilling roles approximately corresponding to tonic, dominant, and subdominant, are used as the harmonic basis. The opening viola solo provides melodic material to be used throughout, and leads into the first instance of the 'tonic' chord being sounded. The piece moves among these three chords; they appear both in a sustained form (with voicings changing gradually, following melodic movement derived from the opening melody), and as the structure under faster counterpoint sections.

The second movement similarly takes traditional models and repurposes them for a contemporary work. The fugue is in accordance with the formal rules about fugal structure; however, it uses non-tonal harmonic material similar to that found in the prelude.

This work was selected as one of the prizewinners in the 2012 West Cork Music Festival Composition Competition, and was performed in Bantry on July 6th 2012.

Prelude and Fugue for String Quartet

Tight Also is a chamber piece for clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), accordion and percussion. Two simple ideas dominate the majority of the work; an evolving rhythmic pattern in the percussion contrasts with the registrally-focused chord material heard in the other instruments. The clarinetist ascends from the depths of the bass instrument's register to the highest reaches of the altissimo voice, while the accordion takes the opposite journey, beginning high and dropping to the very bottom of its range. In the centre, as the two instruments meet, a semi-improvisatory section abruptly begins, only to end just as suddenly.

The work's title comes from a phrase that is repeated throughout the Captain Beefheart album Trout Mask Replica, the sound of which was an inspiration for the middle section.

Tight Also

'Chattering' was composed using a programme called Reaktor to process audio samples. The
resulting sounds were recorded live and later edited into place in Cubase.

For this piece, I had very little prior knowledge of Reaktor and the capabilities of its various effects and processes. All of the material was derived from either a single recording of a harp, or generated within Reaktor itself. The harp sample was processed several times over, allowing me to create a variety of sounds very different from the initial recording. The sounds generated within Reaktor were treated similarly, being recorded and processed several times before being added to the final piece.

The eponymous 'Chattering' of the work runs throughout, and is typically at the front of the soundscape. This sound evoked in me thoughts of a scrambled radio transmission, or the analogue machine-code sounds of faxes and modems. This frenetic, technological sound is contrasted, particularly in the second half of the piece, with the more familiar and soothing sounds of harps and soft drones, until these too begin to splice and mutate in very mechanical ways. The chattering abruptly ceases, leaving the now-altered drones sounding alone in the distance, before they too vanish.

This work was played, along with visuals by artist Alexis morand, in July 2010 in the National Concert Hall, Dublin. The video can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/26374185

Chattering

A short sketch of a folk-influenced piece written for violin and cello. 

Recorded in workshop at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, 27th of February 2012.

Sketches for Air and Dance

An oldie; this was recorded at the Irish Composition Summer School in 2009. The Horn Trio is a great ensemble to write for; and in this piece I experimented with the technique silently depressing keys on the piano, and using resonance from the horn and violin to sound those strings. This can be heard very faintly in the final bars of the work.

Horn Trio

This work was written for a workshop recording in, predictably, November 2011.
I used this work to explore interlocking rhythmic cells, both of equal and unequal duration. The material is also presented as a sort of disguised theme and variation: The sequence of intervals presented as leaps on the clarinet at the work's beginning, is compressed to within an octave and held against a constant bassline, preserving the intervallic material but altering the melodic shape. This technique is used in several places in this work.

Bill McGrath Music

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