Album Booklet

DANCE MAZE Chamber Music by Tom Armstrong Simon Desbruslais trumpet Jakob Fichert piano Nicola Meecham piano Audrey Riley cello James Woodrow electric guitar Fidelio Trio Dance Maze Chamber Music by Tom Armstrong Simon Desbruslais trumpet 7 Morning Music (2012–15) Jakob Fichert piano 6–7 1. Limit [1:47] 1–3 2 .Trails [1:10] Nicola Meecham piano 3. Aubade [8:06] Audrey Riley cello 5 5 James Woodrow electric guitar 4. Diverssements (2009) [11:12] Fidelio Trio: 5. Diversions 3 (2015) [17:53] Darragh Morgan violin 4 & 8 Robin Michael cello 4 6. Dance Maze: Variaons for Piano Mary Dullea piano 4 & 8 (1994, revised 2008, 2017) [12:05] 7. Dance Maze: Duos for Trumpet and Piano (2016–17) [19:37] 8. Akin (2008) [6:23] Total playing me [78:18] Dance Maze: Chamber Music by encompasses self-quotaon – such as Tom Armstong found frequently in Shostakovich’s output (a pracce that can occasion as Revision and Re-working much debate as the existence of compeng revisions) – and the recycling of extant All but one of the pieces on this recording pieces as part of new, larger works as sit on a connuum bounded by revision exemplified by Handel, Bach and (less and re-working. Whilst some (Dance Maze: well-known) Lou Harrison.2 The change Variaons for Piano, Diverssements) of genre that oen accompanies recycling involve greater or lesser adjustments to (for example, Bach’s re-purposing of music an original version, others (Dance Maze: from a solo violin parta as orchestral Duos for Trumpet and Piano, Diversions 3) music for a cantata Sinfonia) produces contain fundamental changes that transform co-exisng versions that can sit less the way an earlier work sounds. controversially alongside each other than is oen the case with revisions. As the far end Revision is used here, then, to refer to a of the connuum is approached the original process that produces a replacement of and its re-working become more disnct from the original as part of an aempt at each other; changes are not wrought by improvement. An area of ambiguity recontextualisaon, as in recycling, but from immediately arises, though, in the within. Luciano Berio’s harmonic and mbral numerous cases where composers’ elaboraon of Sequenza VI to create Chemins successive improvements have accrued II is a good example of such diversificaon; in different versions creang potenally in no sense is the laer an improvement of tricky, even insurmountable, editorial the former, rather a recolouring, an decisions. Related to this are certain amplificaon and a filling out at the centre philosophical quesons such as deciding of which the original viola solo remains when a work may have reached it’s final intact. Re-working was also a preoccupaon Tom Armstrong Photography: Francis Western version, whether the final version exceeds of Pierre Boulez but underpinned by processes its predecessors, and whether the of proliferaon rather than commentary ‘rightness’ of this version can ever be such that extreme differences in duraon proved.1 Moving across the connuum, are found between both versions (see for the pracce of self-borrowing is less example Dérive I and II – the laer also concerned with such quesons; it subject to a process of revision). Towards the end of his life Boulez wrote ‘Replay’ is a severe compression of dovetailing between the first two of thinned slightly, and in 2017 when the that the principle of ‘open form’ could be ‘Aubade’ by means of which its character these during which angular rhythmic dynamic profile of several secons was used to symbolise his view of composion is changed markedly; the brief, music gradually yields to more lyrical altered in order to diffuse the unrelenng itself, that the “basic premise” of a piece concentrated ideas that make up both material. intensity of the earlier version. The could serve as a point of departure for pieces are now arculated aggressively variaons are based on a row of twenty “revisions, reevaluaons, reconsideraons.” 3 and silences become interrupve, not Of all the pieces on this recording, notes that is oen presented in a This noon of openness is one embraced containers for reverberaon. The Diversions 3 (2015) for electric guitar fragmented form; a good example of by many of the works on this recording satellite pieces are re-workings (rather with oponal addions (here, cello), this is the opening in which the first six but they also go further, with later versions than revisions) of ‘Aubade’, channelling probably travels the greatest distance notes of the theme gradually unfold in acvely quesoning earlier ones by adopng, the material of the original into discreet from its source – the electric guitar and the le hand alternang with short bursts for example, very different means of off-shoots instead of usurping it. harpsichord version of Diverssements. of busier material. The theme is finally organisaon or notaon. In this way the Unlike the piano trio, Diversions 3 is a heard in full aer about two minutes, gap between the past and the present The piano trio, Diverssements (2009), complete re-working that substutes a played in widely separated octaves found at any point on the revision/re-working is a revision originally composed as a new set of structural and aesthec punctuated by staccato chords. Duos connuum remains palpable and, it is hoped, replacement for its forebear but, at the priories: in place of organic growth, for Trumpet and Piano re-works sets up a producve and expressive tension. me of wring, that version is also wholeness and seamlessness are found Variaons for Piano in two ways: firstly, undergoing revision – there is always a a list-like structure in which the diverse the connuous sequence of variaons The Music danger of musically ‘painng the Forth material of the piece is presented on single is broken into discreet secons which can Bridge’ when revising works! The choice pages that are never returned to and be re-connected in any order by the The solo piano collecon, Morning Music of piano trio represents a complete between which performers need to devise performers; secondly, the trumpet part (2012–15), consists of three short ‘satellite’ change of medium from the original their own approach to connuity. The form gras on material derived from a completely pieces (‘Limit’, ‘Trails’ and ‘Replay’) orbing line-up of electric guitar and harpsichord. is open to a degree; performers can begin different source – melodic techniques and a longer one, ‘Aubade’. The laer was This reversion to a venerable chamber on any page and include as many or as few paerns from the book, Self-Similar Melodies, composed first as a standalone piece, music ensemble reveals the movaon of the ensuing pages as they like. by Tom Johnson (a composer I had not then ‘Limit’ and ‘Trails’ were added in behind the revision, that the rather heard of when I wrote Variaons for 2014. These pieces present different tradional texture and aesthec of the Dance Maze, like Morning Music, is a Piano). Such a procedure is far from readings of the sequence of six-note piece seemed ill-suited to the original collecon but on a much larger scale unprecedented in Western art music and chords that runs through the original: instrumentaon. The revision process also encompassing revision and re-working. may be traced back at least as far as the ‘Limit’ presents just the uppermost note afforded the opportunity for trimming Variaons for Piano constutes the Medieval motet with its superimposion of each chord as a gradually expanding dimensions and finessing transions original and has been subject to two of secular texts (oen French) over Lan monody, whilst ‘Trails’ breaks the chords between the three divermen that phases of revision – in 2008 during which chants. An example of this approach into ever-changing paerns scaered constute the form of the piece, for the many changes of meter were associated with the revision process is across the keyboard. Wrien in 2015, example there is now a pronounced raonalised and the piano textures furnished by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstück V in which the revised version Fracture from the album Starless and of the piece became a background on Bible Black by King Crimson. Akin is a which new material was superimposed – homage to the experience of first hearing grace note groups derived from an Fracture, in parcular its opening passage unrelated twelve-tone row. By means of of whole tone music, and to the excitement a similar ‘alien’ source the trumpet part of discovering King Crimson’s parcular in Duos assumes a level of autonomy strain of progressive rock with its emphasised by the possibility of extracng connecons to tweneth-century the part to form the self-contained piece, classical music. In re-working the original Solos for Trumpet. This re-working of Duos its proporons are retained but within challenges its spaal integrity by prising smaller dimensions. Although the apart the two instrumental components. harmonic materials are new the music In turn, both re-workings challenge the of the original is clearly alluded to temporal integrity of Variaons through throughout, from the whole tone ‘exploding’ its fixed form. These re-workings beginning, to the central interlude in Darragh Morgan Mary Dullea Photography: Frances Marshall Photography: Sophie Dennehy share with Diversions 3 a crical atude tenths, to the frenec rising sequences to their predecessors whereby rather that dominate the closing minutes of convenonal noons of musical form and the track. It is only the very ending that structure – organicism, seamlessness, contradicts the source; whereas Fracture tension and release – are confronted with ends with a passage of typical rock the openness, fragmentaon and stasis grandiosity, Akin simply evaporates.

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