Premiered at the Cheltenham Music Festival 2013 by the Dr K Sextet.

Constant Tides

Daniel Kidane's contribution to the Orgelbüchlein Project, played by William Whitehead at HM Chapel Royal, Tower of London, part of Spitalfields Festival. Sponsored by the Lucile Graham Trust, Bliss Trust and PRS.

http://www.orgelbuechlein.co.uk 

Gott Ist Mein Heil, Mein Hulf Mein Trost

Foreign Tongues

Orchestra: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Andrew Gourlay

Sirens - for Symphony Orchestra

Programme Note:

During the summer of 2009 I travelled to Eritrea, East Africa, to collect and record tribal music. On my travels to a place called Massawa, on the coast of the Red Sea, I encountered a mirage in a desolate yet beautiful place. Flux and Stasis is a reflection of that moment in time – the changing environment around me and I at the centre of it having lost a sense of time.  

Trying to capture the illusion with my camera I encountered many optical aberrations, which heightened the visual aura of my surroundings. In the distance I could hear bird song, coupled with the heat it to began to warp in and out of clarity.  

With these elements in my mind I began work, coupling what I had seen and heard with elements of horn call (called a melekhet) – prolific in the music of the largest ethnic group in Eritrea the Tigrinya people.    

The final passage of the trio being a reminiscence of an earlier visit of mine to Eritrea, in my youth – when I couldn’t practice Paganini’s 9th Caprice due to the sweltering heat, which in turn gave me time to work on my first ever composition.  

(Premiered by: Violin - Vicente Espi, Tom Bayman - Cello, Piano - Chris Illingworth)



Flux and Stasis

Programme Note:

As the piece was initially written for twins, my first thought was to create a work that avoided clearly independent lines. My desire throughout was to conjure an almost orchestral depth and variety of sound. Both these ideas account for the fact that the two violoncello parts are virtually braided together and don’t tend to stray too far from each other. Many double-stops and maintained four line parts are employed to add to the engulfing nature of the piece; with its beginnings in turbulent, almost fractured, part writing to a thicker more streamlined middle and finally a return to the energetic movement spawned at the start.

(Cellists: Dave McCann and Tom Bayman)

Links

Programme Note:

‘Towards Resolution’ was inspired by Purcell’s first three part Fantazia. The stimulus for my piece was his opening descending gesture, heard at the very beginning of his work. I set out to generate a stasis in my piece – creating a feeling of timelessness and gradually building towards a resolution that clarifies all that came before. As the piece slowly progresses, morphing in and out of harmony, the timbre becomes more and more agitated signalled by the tremolos and ever-rising glissandi. Eventually, the timbral turbulence reaches a plateau from which the resolution seamlessly surfaces.   

(Premiered by the Manchester Camerata Orchestra) 
http://www.manchestercamerata.co.uk 

Towards Resolution

Programme Note:

Wiener Riesenrad, German for Vienna Ferris Wheel, was named after the ferris wheel found at the entrance to the Prater amusement park in Leopoldstadt, Vienna. I first came across it in the post-war film noir The Third Man, which also provided me with the idea to create zither sounds in my piece. With these two quirky ideas in my head, ferris wheel and zither, I set off to compose.  

(Premiered by: Robbie Gardiner - Clarinet, Catriona Price - Violin I, Bianca Blezzard Violin II, Rhiannon James - Viola and Cecily Smith - Cello)

Wiener Riesenrad

The initial stimulus for this set of pieces was a painting by Kandinsky, Composition VII (1913). The painting represents a period when he was concerned with emotional, abstract paintings of two sorts: (a) improvisations ('unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner character, the non-material nature' that contain no recognizable objects, but coloured shapes that express feelings) and (b) compositions ('an expression of a slowly formed inner feeling, tested and worked over repeatedly' that include recognizable objects, but ones that have been 'stripped' and 'veiled'). Taking the latter idea as a starting point I began to mould and form a tripartite piece which conveyed the energy and colour from canvas to notes.

(Premiered by David Horne) 
http://www.davidhorne.net 

Daniel Kidane Composer

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