(2017)
ded. to Philip Thomas & Cassandra Miller
pf Ben Smith
Durham, June 2021
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZX8WNkc2VM)
rec. Eric Egan
art: Lenore Tawney, "Lekythos" (1963)

For piano (dancing)

perf. by the National Estonian Symphony orchestra, cond. Olari Elts
concert recording / 10.9.2021

Commissioned by Musica femina München and composed for the Münchener Kammerochester, cond. Clemens Schuldt

"Hier ist alles Abstand, und dort wars Atem". R.M.Rilke. Die achte Elegie

Following the series of my aquatic pieces, “Apnea” (in latin “absence of breathing”) for string orchestra, written during the pandemic winter, reflects the importance of breathing whilst exploring the physical and emotional transformation during the immersion under the water. The macro form of the composition reminds of a very long breath-in and a gradual breath-out stretching the time in between while continuing to delay the climax and increase the tension until the limits. The orchestra is playing without any pause taking both the players and listeners through the existential odyssey.

"Apnea" for strings (2021)

A Sunlight Absence

Practice day for the Campanologists of Dundalk, Ireland. 15th June 2024.
EM272 (pair) + Sony PCM A10

Change ringing in Dundalk, Ireland

Berlin, "Ultraschall Festival" im "R"
Klavier : Christoph Grund 

S3 für Klavier und Elektronik

Ensemble Hezarfen:
Violin: Ozcan Ulucan
Viola: Ulrich Mertin
Cello: Ozan Tunca

Edition Peters, Leipzig



iv 8 für Streichtrio

Video: https://youtu.be/qnpk_mk57-M

“…eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; and to the guilty man, for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure of blood...."

Thomas De Quincey (1821)

The title of my string quartet piece is drawn from Thomas De Quincey’s "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (1821). "Confessions" is an autobiographical account of De Quincey’s struggles with opium addiction. He took the drug in the form of laudanum, a popular opium tincture. De Quincey meditates first on the pleasures of opium, describing its effectiveness in aiding sleep, fostering a sense of wellbeing and assuaging psychological disquiet. He goes on to chart the decline of such pleasures into nightmarish visions, hallucinations and physical frailty. In the early 1800s little was known about the effects of narcotics: "Confessions" was one of the first publications to offer a systematic study of their regular use.

I was intrigued by the fact that Beethoven’s late quartets were published in the same decade as De Quincey’s famous work. In 'The Opium-Eaters' I respond to these two outputs, quietly exploring the idea of the epiphanic moment. The performers are asked to face inwards, a position that string quartets would have adopted when playing from the table music stands of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

'The Opium-Eaters' was premiered by the Escher String Quartet in Taplin Auditorium, Princeton, March 2016. This recording is shared with their kind permission.

The Opium-Eaters (2016)

dedicated to Henri Demarquette

performed by Henri Demarquette and Sequenza 9.3., cond. Catherine Simonpietri

Plonge tes yeux dans les yeux fixes / Des Satyresses our des Nixes                            Charles Baudelaire (L'Avertisseur, Fleurs du Mal)

1st performance: 3rd of June, 2015, Philharmonie de Paris                                       

"Plonge" (eng. "Plunge") for cello and 12 voices (2015) was commissioned by Henri Demarquette and the vocal Ensemble Sequenza 9.3  for their programme "Vocello" and premiered at a special concert at the Philharmonie de Paris on the 3rd of June.
As my previous pieces were mostly written for strings (especially cello) and voices, usually in "monochrome" ensembles, I was really curious to mix, fuse these timbres together in a very homogeneous texture, revealing the "cantabile" quality of both and exploring very different colours of different ranges of the cello which may correspond to different timbres of the choir.
When I discovered "Vocello" repertoire, I got completely taken by Dido's Lament by Henry Purcell the musicians included into their programme, which is based on a continuously descending basso continuo. In terms of baroque rethorics this figure is called catabasis, a musical symbol of the descent to the underworld. Then by a pure accident my attention had been captured by a related ecxerpt from Charles Baudelaire's poetry, creating a mystic vision of sinking into a state of stasis (Plonge tes yeux dans les yeux fixes / Des Satyresses our des Nixes from L'Avertisseur, Fleurs du Mal). So my piece is an acoustic metaphor of all these inspirations together. The musical process is an extremely gradual catabasis although with a "happier end", rather bringing to an ecstatic, hypnotic state unlike the tragic Purcell's final. The musical structure of the piece could remind of a whirling vortex that is gradually getting more and more slow, wide, profound until the cellist gets drowned and melted in the sea of voices which accumulate like increasing resonances of the cello line... Through this slowing vortex the connection between the musical time sensation and space is also being explored: the more the acoustic space is filled in with sounds, the more their spectrum becomes wider and richer, the more the time gets slow until completely freezes. Juste Janulyte

"Plonge" for cello and 12 voices (2015)

Song nr. 9 from Niels Rønsholdt's 'Songs of Doubt (Prospect / Retrospect)' studio album released 2017 by Dacapo Records with Roderick Povel, Nathalie Forget and Studium Chorale conducted by Hans Leenders.
Buy / stream the album at your preferred place.

A Sunlight Absence

Eamonn Quinn

Related tracks