Two new compositions have recently been completed, both of which were commissioned by Ars Musica Australis.

The first new piece is entitled The Metallic Violin, and uses as its inspiration the manic, wild and over-the-top electric guitar solos commonly found in varieties of heavy metal music. Also I am making reference to the title of John Corigliano’s work The Red Violin, though in a very contrasting way! The Metallic Violin is for solo violin and lasts for about 8 minutes or so.

The second new piece is quite different to what would be considered my ‘typical’ music. It is called Funeral Windows and is written for solo basset clarinet, a larger clarinet that extends the range of the standard clarinet to a lower pitch. Mozart wrote his clarinet pieces for basset clarinet, and an increasing number of contemporary composers are now writing for it too. In Funeral Windows I imagine the thoughts, experiences and emotions of a passenger in a funeral car on their way between the funeral and burial services. It was composed for David Rowden, the amazing Sydney-based clarinettist.

I am also in the middle of composing a new work entitled Kulkadungu with William Barton. This will be premiered next year by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

for two violins.

duration: 8 minutes

Faber Music publishing details

Audio Excerpt

Programme Notes

Adapted from a work for solo violin, The Metallic Violins uses as its inspiration the manic, wild and over-the-top electric guitar solos commonly found in varieties of heavy metal music. Known as ‘shredding’, the point of such solos is to demonstrate the performer’s virtuosity, especially in playing as fast as possible. There are a number of blistering passages for each of the violinists in this piece and it certainly requires extensive technical facility on the part of the performers.

Further reference to the heavy metal inspiration in this work can be observed through the use of a dark-sounding set of pitches and the use of similar rhythmic figures to those employed by ‘cheese-metal’ bands such as Dream Theater.

notes by Matthew Hindson.

Ordering Information

The full score and parts may be ordered from the Australian Music Centre

CD Recording Available?

This piece is available on a disc entitled “The Metallic Violins”, released by Tall Poppies, featuring violinists Natsuko Yoshimoto and James Cuddeford who gave the work’s premiere at the 2008 Aurora Festival.

Other information

string quartet

duration: 16 minutes

Faber Music publishing details

Audio Excerpt

(one minute from the opening of the piece)

Programme Notes

Industrial Night Music was commissioned by Sandra Yates and Michael Skinner in memory of Michael’s father. One of the aspects of Michael’s father’s life was that he worked as an army engineer. This created a sense of resonance to me as I grew up in the Illawarra, a region dominated by the steelworks at Port Kembla, briefly working there and also in the blast furnace at the steelworks at Whyalla.

The outer sections of Industrial Night Music are built around musical expressions of mechanical and industrial processes viewed at close quarters. These include pollution, grime, dirt, ugliness, heat, a (male) worker surrounded by a surfeit of continually grinding interlocking gears, “mecchanico machismo”. The middle section is quite different: slow-moving, it portrays the still beauty of a large industrial workplace at night, viewed from afar, lit up by thousands of lights like a giant Christmas tree. It is only after one goes within the structures themselves that the true nature of the processes involved are revealed.

Industrial Night Music was first performed by the Goldner String Quartet in 2003, and toured by them for Musica Viva Australia.

notes by Matthew Hindson.

Reviews

At evening end and having its premiere season was Industrial Night Music, privately commissioned from Matthew Hindson, arguably today’s most distinctive Australian compositional voice, and in danger of being labelled as a bovver-boy.

He is much more, as this piece attests. Wisely rearranging the order of service to conserve some elbow grease for Hindson’s self-styled “meccanico machismo”, the players were able to expose the muscular, often memorable rhythmic patterns that clarify his texture and distinguish his pieces.

The cello was his instrument of choice to establish and maintain the momentum, and Julian Smiles lost quite a hunk of his bow hair depicting the dark and dirty sides of steelworks in Port Kembla and Whyalla. Elizabeth Silsbury, The Advertiser, 23 August 2003, page 87.

CD Recording Available?

Not yet. A live recording of the piece is available through the Australian Music Centre library.

Other Information

This piece may be ordered through Faber Music.