Performed by Ensemble Pamplemousse with Laura Cocks, Charlotte Mundy, and Marina Kifferstein, Aug 2021. Commissioned by Darmstadt Ferienkürse 2020 (2021).

This is a bridge.
This bridge is not your typical "cable" bridge.
This one does not go to nowhere.
It is much stronger, and it is made with little pieces of metal in it.
It is sturdy, but it takes time and it does not always hold.
Like anything else, it can break.
Sometimes people will drive onto the bridge, and jump over the side.
Some people will jump right into water.
Some people will jump right onto the train tracks on the other side of the river.
The bridge has no train tracks.
It is the train tracks that make the bridge.

The bridge has no train tracks (Universal™ Love)

Jab is dedicated to Adam Łukawski, a gifted composer who changed many things about my approach to life. He himself is carrying out important research which implements both Shepard tone principles and Artificial Intelligence technologies. Every time we talk some bright spark of an idea always floats into view, like "bitcoin" or "compositional NFT", honestly every conversation is pretty wild. This piece would have taken a very different course if not for many of our perspective-altering conversations. Jab is directly influenced by many of Adam’s ideas.

Jab is a simultaneous expression of turmoil and joy. It's my life between 03/19 and 12/20. In this time, I experienced frustration, anger, fear, rejection and loss. At the same time, there was laughter, exhilaration, discovery and rebirth. I met people that I love dearly. While sketching, composing and extensively recomposing, I constantly questioned what exactly I wanted to deliver. Was it a joke or swear? A punch line or a sucker punch? Ultimately, I couldn’t decide. But maybe that's what this piece is and what the rest of my work is increasingly becoming, the chaos of indecision.

The piece is built on six contrasting gestures. The first is a cluster that peels away to reveal diatonic harmonies and then a scale (such gestures are found in Dutilleux, Nielsen and Schumann). The second is a twinkling two part counterpoint. The third is a bulldozer in a China shop, a spectacle which misdirects. The fourth is a slow, ornamental, folk (in the broadest sense of the word) Finnisy-an melody with morphs into two. The fifth, at bar 33, is a Shepard tone texture. The Shepard tone textures in particular are inspired by Adam’s research. The sixth and last gesture consists of lithe arpeggiations which excite ghostly harmonics from strings sustained in the sostenuto pedal. These seemingly appear from nowhere. Across the piece I combine and recombine these gestures; push them through Risset accelerations and decelerations; throw and muddy them. 

Jab was commissioned by the Park Lane Group through the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. Initially, Dominic Degavino, a Park Lane Group young artist, was due to premier the piece. However, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Park Lane Group were unable to mount a premier of the piece. Instead, here we have the INDOMITABLE Ben Smith, grounding, pounding, flying, grappling, doing sik kikflips, jumping, running, sitting still, doing sensitive line drawings, sometimes all at the same time. Ben you are a literal force of nature. The scope of your abilities is literally terrifying. Sometimes when I look at you and your work, I feel I'm staring into the heart of Vesuvius.

I can't thank Ben enough for the time, energy and dynamism he's put into Jab, thank you Ben! Thanks also to my supervisors Professor Julian Anderson and Malcolm Singer, who asked me to draft, redraft and constantly questioned me: what do you want to hear? This piece would not be without them.

Jab - for solo piano

Live performance

Ekmeles, directed by Jeffrey Gavett
Moore Musical Arts Center, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
22 November 2021

Madrigal book in 31-TET (2012-16) after Nicola Vicentino
Texts adapted from Jacques Arcadelt's Primo Libro de' Madrigali (1539)

Primo Libro

studio Mastering: lorenzotarghetta@gmail.com
Piece for solo guitare played by Carlo Siega
Score available here: https://www.babelscores.com/catalogs/instrumental/8046-de-toucher-de-lignes8046

de toucher de lignes - (2021 solo E-guitar)

Performed by Sasha Savaloni
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Timothy Cooper
Image by Maria Urso

In Grab und Mond D.893, Schubert sets a particularly chilling poem of the same name by Johann Gabriel Seidl. The poet addresses both the moon and the grave, seeking answers about life after death. Silberblau takes the separation of the worlds above and below the grave as its starting point. The guitar’s strings are divided through the use of a capo, which allows two distinct soundworlds to emerge. Schubert’s music is processed and disfigured via a three-fold filter of the capo; string preparations; and manipulated recordings of Grab und Mond, which I arranged for guitar at the beginning of the process.

Commissioned by Sasha Savaloni as part of his ‘An den Mond’
project.

Silberblau (for solo guitar, electronics and light) [2020]

The piano quartet, Baba O’Riley, was written for the Flex Ensemble based in Hanover Germany. Written in four movements, the work enjoys the sense of mischief and theatre which I experienced while getting to know the ensemble’s performance history.

The first movement is a stately dance performed by marionettes. The music is meant to communicate in the manner of a player-piano. Each instrumental part has a repetitive motif, weaving a tapestry of changing combinations. The piano middle-staff is a rhythmic figure acting like a guide for all the other parts. Each part has its own character, the cello mumbles and sulks with no melodic material, the viola and violin are in a quietly giddy conversation, both with similar material but played in different registers. The movement ends abruptly, the player-piano roll has ended.

The second movement is a lively music-box waltz. The violin plays a continuous happy alpine folk-music melody with repetitive Fritz Kreisler Viennese figures. The piano, cello and viola are the delicate but sharp rhythmic clicks and clacks of the music-box. The violin’s fluent line is contrasted by the simplicity of the piano. The dance ends, but there is a coda, with the violin now playing a contemplative version of the earlier happy melody.

The third movement is in three parts. Each is a dance, performed discreetly and quietly. The piano becomes increasingly more delicate with the string parts moving from a skipping 6/8 roundel to a quiet pizzicato section, ending with a long drawn out and barely audible gossamer legato texture.

In the fourth movement the piano takes the role of an upright piano in a small dancehall, pretending to play in a Hammerklavier manner to accompany a group of rowdy characters. The violin, viola and cello are each dancers with their own eccentric way of moving about the room, each with their own repetitive skips and tricks. The violin suddenly turns into a singer and belts out a very high note while the piano keeps chugging along. As the piece winds down in sections, the cello abruptly remembers something it meant to say in the beginning.

The title may suggest this piece is an homage to the well known tune by the British Rock group The Who. It isn’t. The band named their song Baba O’Riley, in part, as tribute to the wonderful composer, Terry Riley, a sentiment I share. But that aside, some pieces seem to name themselves, and this name simply seemed the right title for this piano quartet.

Baba O'Riley (2022) piano quartet

The podcasts are produced and presented entirely by students. The third episode is hosted by Lisa, Mikkel and Juro and includes a discussion about the New Discipline with accordionist-composer Andreas Borregaard and composer-performer Josh Spear of the group Bastard Assignments.

Episode 03

“Scacciapensieri” is one of the many Italian words for “Mouth Harp” or “Jew's Harp”. “Scacciare” means “chasing away” and “pensieri” can be translated as “thoughts”. The reason for this name is because the Mouth-Harp is placed on the teeth and uses the mouth but also the full skull resonance, because of its placement on the teeth. Since the full skull resonates, one says that all thoughts will be chased away. The melody in my piece comes from a very popular Italian song: Eh, cumpari. The song describes a list of instruments and asks how they sound. The percussionists tonight will be chasing their own list of percussion instruments away.

www.maya.ricercata.org

Scacciare Pensieri was written for Abstruckt Ensemble and premiered at the 840: New Music for Percussion on 01/06/2016.

Maya Verlaak – Scacciare Pensieri

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2006/09/30/orfeo/

A short piece in eight movements. With each movement, I pruned the material so to include what I'd hoped was the smallest amount of information necessary to make each statement. Each movement is loosely based on sections of the opera l'Orfeo, by Claudio Monteverdi (marking 400 years since its first performance).  A theatrical piece with children's toys and dramatic page turning.

Orfeo by Monteverdi by Cassandra Miller (2006)

Quatuor Bozzini (https://quatuorbozzini.ca/fr/)
recorded live at
Time:Spans Festival (https://timespans.org/)
NYC, August 2019

string quartet no 4 (2019)

Written for the composer's wedding, scheduled for April 2020, but postponed to October. Recorded in lockdown by Tabea Debus.

Someone

Composer from the UK currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Working in acoustic and electronic sound, text, video and performance​

Graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Currently studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus.

e-mail: grousey2@yahoo.co.uk

Silberblau (for solo guitar, electronics and light) [2020]

Matthew Grouse

Related tracks