Tenor Saxophone - Anthony Vouliotis
‘Impulse’ grapples with the nature of Tourette syndrome and the involuntary behaviour associated with it. Polarities of sudden against gradual, familiar against bizarre, and serene against startling are explored within this work. The tenor saxophone explores this complexity and reflects human unpredictability in a musical medium.

Impulse ft. Anthony Vouliotis

This is the premiere of Timothy Mallis's work performed by Stella Joseph-Jarecki and the composer (piano) at Melba Hall, Melbourne, Australia on 10 May 2016.

'Seasons Out of Order as Ash Floats Toward the Sun' is the closing line of the following short poem:

Cold blue silence
Luminous atmosphere
Outside forever strangely
Burning across imaginary borders
Seasons out of order as ash floats toward the sun
(Anon)

This piece interprets this text as a depiction of a post-apocalyptic world.

Seasons Out of Order as Ash Floats Toward the Sun

Song cycle for baritone and piano
Performed by Lachlan McDonald (baritone)
and Timothy Mallis (piano)

From the horrors of war, the human condition is laid bare under the terror of power. The Burning Marl, a book of poems by John Le Gay Brereton (1919), relays the Australian narrative of the Great War. Of its 18 poems, extracts of 9 have been selected. Please find the full text at the back of the program.

Composition 6 Folio

The Burning Marl - VIII. The War After the War

The Burning Marl - VII. The Power of Hell

The Burning Marl - VI. Death

The Burning Marl - V. Light Loss

The Burning Marl - IV. The Dirge

The Burning Marl - III. Transports

The Burning Marl - II. Belgium

The Burning Marl - I. War

Text adapted from Darcy Wentworth Thompson’s (1860-1948) 1910 translation of Aristotle’s (384 BC-322 BC) ‘History of Animals’ (Book IV, Chapter 10)

All creatures that are red-blooded and provided with legs give sensible proof that they go to sleep. As a matter of fact, all animals that are furnished with eyelids shut them up when they go to sleep. Furthermore, it would appear that not only do humans dream, but horses also, and doggos, and oxen, and sheep, and goats, and all viviparous quadrupeds; and doggos show their dreaming by barking in their sleep.

The proof of the fishes’ sleeping cannot be got from the condition of their eyes; for none of these creatures are furnished with eyelids. The proof of their sleeping can only be obtained from their motionless repose.

Apart from the irritation caused by lice and what are nicknamed fleas, fish are met within a state so motionless that one might easily catch them by hand;

But it is from the following facts that we may more reasonably infer that fishes sleep:

Very often it is possible to take a fish off its guard so far as to catch hold of it or to give it a blow unawares; and all the while that you are preparing to catch or strike it, the fish is quite still but for a slight motion of the tail. It is quite obvious that the animal is sleeping from its movements if any disturbance be made during its repose; for it moves just as you would expect in a creature suddenly awakened. Further, owing to their being asleep, fish may be captured by torchlight. The watchmen in the tunny-fishery often take advantage of the fish being asleep to envelop them in a circle of nets; and it is quite obvious that they were thus sleeping by their lying still and allowing the glistening under-parts of their bodies to become visible. They sleep in the night-time more than during the day; and so soundly at night that you may cast the net without making them stir.
Fish, as a general rule, sleep close to the ground, or to the sand, or to a stone at the bottom, or after concealing themselves under a rock or the ground.

Molluscs sleep like fishes, and crustaceans also. It is plain also that insects sleep; for there can be no mistaking their condition of motionless repose.

Of all animals, man is most given to dreaming. Children and infants do not dream, but in most cases dreaming comes on at the age of four or five years.

So much then for the sensation and for the phenomena of sleeping and of awakening.

Sleep, and Whether It Occurs in Fish

First performed at Ian Potter Museum of Art, Victoria, Australia and curated by Andrew Groch.

An art gallery in its physical form is confined to the space it fills. It merely takes the figure of any other building. However, its content has the ability to transport its occupants to places that transcend the three dimensions of a room. This piece reflects upon this transcendence and fills the performance space with music.

Dimensions

Timothy Mallis is a Melbourne-based musician specialising in composition and piano accompaniment.

Timothy Mallis

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