Category Archives: New Composition News

Catalogue of Works, Chamber Works, New Composition News

Five Movements for Saxophone Quartet (1996)

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for saxophone quartet

total duration: 23 minutes

Audio Excerpts

Programme Notes

The Five Movements for Saxophone Quartet were composed for the Senarius Saxophone Quartet, and were performed by them at the International Saxophone Festival in Wakefield, England.

Saxophone quartets seem to be overtaking string quartet in sheer numbers of performers, and in the composer’s opinion forms a fascinating way in which issues of ensemble and the like can be address with wind instruments, providing as it does an entire family of instruments in a similar way to the idiom of string quartet.

Each of the five movements of this work are contrasting. The first evolves from an amorphous sound-world, gradually accelerating until the end of the movement, with figures being passed around each instrument, building in texture. The second movement is a showcase in atmospherics for the tenor saxophone, utilizing extensive multiphonics to create eerie soundworlds. The third movement starts in total contrast, with the entire ensemble playing repetitious rhythmic figures, broken up only by short figures on the tenor saxophone, evolving to a series of different textures, some almost pointillistic in nature. The fourth movement is a slow, tender movement which makes much use of canonic figures being passed around the accompanying instruments to create a rippling mood. The final movement, subtitled “GameBoy Music”, again showcases a total contrast with the previous material, utililizing aspects of techno music to produce an infectiously joyous celebration in music.

notes by Matthew Hindson.

CD Recording Available?

    A recording of the last movement, GameBoy Music, is available on the CD Continuum Sax.

Other Information

Instrument and Piano, New Composition News

Violin Concertino: Summer Stories (2009)

for violin and piano
duration: approx. 15 minutes

three movements, each of which may be performed separately

Faber Music publishing details

Audio

None yet.

 

Programme Notes

Summer is my favorite season of the year. In Australia everyone is more relaxed in summer: taking time out, going on holidays and enjoying outdoor activities.

Each of the movements of this piece is inspired by an aspect of summer in this country. The first movement, Moderato, is based upon the long, flat roads of inland Australia. Travelling down these roads in a car, the outside heat bakes the bitumen and the wider landscape, producing a shimmering effect. It is symptomatic of a country which has existed for millions of years, and which will exist for millions more, long past humankind.

The second movement, Molto Andante, is also inspired heat by the image of an elderly person reminiscing on their verandah at a summer day’s end, remembering friends and relatives long passed away.

Fun at the beach is a typical aspect of summer in Australia enjoyed by millions of people every year. The playful mood of the final movement, Vivace Giocoso, was written with this in mind.

Violin Concertino was commissioned by Michael Patterson and Ars Musica Australis.

notes by Matthew Hindson, 2009.

CD Recording Available?

    Not currently available.
    The violin part in this work is deliberately written to be playable by violinists of between a Grade 7 and A.Mus.A Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) standard. It is a suitable work for performance for HSC or Year 12 music examinations.
Catalogue of Works, Mixed Ensemble, New Composition News

Light Music (2007)

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for woodwind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb, horn, bassoon)

duration: approximately 12 minutes

Faber Music publishing details

Audio Excerpts:
Excerpt from first mvt:
http://www.hindson.com.au/Audio/LightMusic1stMvtExcerpt.mp3
Excerpt from second mvt:
http://www.hindson.com.au/Audio/LightMusic2ndMvtExcerpt.mp3

Programme Notes

i. Strobe

ii. A Single Match

The term “light music” refers to a specific genre of music designed for ‘easy listening’ , particularly written by English composers between the 1930s and 1960s. In many ways it was the precursor to what we today would appreciate as muzak.

My own compositions have sometimes been derided as “light”, but a response to such criticism was not the only basis to this piece. Rather, the main idea in Light Music is the nature of light, and our response to two visual scenarios or objects. The first movement explores the pounding, incessant binary nature of strobe lights. The music is similarly bright, harsh, irrepressible and possibly even migraine-inducing. It may evoke sensations as found in a contemporary dance club. The second movement is based upon the capacities of the human eye. Apparently its scope is that we could, under ideal conditions, see a single match burning from 70kms away (as unlikely as that seems). So the second movement of Light Music is inspired by the thought of humans viewing the earth in darkness from a near-space orbit, and seeing shimmering lights way down below – maybe even the burning of a single match.

From a compositional perspective each of the movements is based upon a musical principle. In “Strobe”, only one note-name is sounded at any one time. The whole movement is based upon unisons and octaves, with extra harmony being created by held notes forming chords. “A Single Match” utilizes many chords built up by intervals of seconds (rather like the Polish composer Gorecki), upon which more lyrical utterances are placed by each of the instruments in the ensemble.

notes by Matthew Hindson.

CD Recording Available?

Other information:Analysis notes and composition tasks by Paul Stanhope, MLC School

New Composition News

Video Game Dreaming (1996/2010)

for saxophone quartet

duration: 13 minutes

Faber Music publishing details, also available in version for clarinet quartet

Audio Excerpt

Excerpt from “GameBoy Music”, performed and recorded by Continuum Sax

Programme Notes

i. Start Select Pause Reset

ii. Gamer’s Hypnagogia

iii. GameBoy Music

Video Game Dreamingis a work written in response to video games, their characteristics and their effects upon our everyday lives. For the past 30 years or so of my life I have been an avid player of video games, going right back to the advent of Pong and Space Invaders in the late 1970s through to the first-person shooter and real-time strategy games of the current day. To some people, video games are a waste of time, whereas for others, they are an intriguing, addictive form of relaxation and even social interaction.
This piece is in three movements. The first, “Start Select Pause Reset”, refers to the buttons found on the controllers of many video game consoles. Each of these buttons interrupts and alters the flow of the game in progress, and similarly the music in this movement is segmented and interrupted. The term “hypnagogia” refers to the state (and hallucinations) between waking and sleep, and provides the inspiration for the second movement. One problem with playing too many video games is the difficulty of sleeping afterwards, with images from the games constantly flooding your mind, uninvited. It is as if the game is still playing in one’s brain without conscious control. The final movement, “GameBoy Music”, takes as its starting point the idea of a malfunctioning video game, perhaps a hand-held game in which the batteries have gotten wet.

notes by Matthew Hindson.

CD Recording Available?

              The final movement, “GameBoy Music”, is available on a CD by

Continuum Sax.

Other Information

Catalogue of Works, New Composition News, String Works

Song of Life (2007)

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for solo violin

duration: 4 minutes

Faber Music site publishing details

Audio:

Programme Notes

Fr. Arthur Bridge is the progenitor and driving force behind Ars Music Australis, an arts support body in Australia that has commissed over 150 new works by Australian and international composers. Without Fr. Arthur Bridge, the Australian contemporary art music scene would be in a very sorry state indeed. History will list him with such patrons of the arts as the Medici family in renaissance Venice: there has been no-one of his achievements in the history of the Australian arts.

In late 2006 Fr. Bridge was taken ill and rushed to intensive care in a hospital in Sydney. His situation was very much touch-and-go. However the thing about Fr. Bridge is that he is a fighter. If anyone could stare death in the face and refuse to succumb, it would be him. Consequently he recovered and at the time of writing, looks healthier than I’ve ever seen him, just 2 months after being basically dead.

Song of Lifeis a tribute to Fr. Bridge’s fighting spirit and triumph of adversity.

notes by Matthew Hindson.

CD Recording Available?

    Not at present.