Music archive entry

MIDI Recordings:
1st movement
2nd movement
3rd movement

The piece has three contrasting movements. The first consists of the repetion of slightly varying and insistent figures within a narrow pitch range. The second of fragmentary material spread across the whole range of the instrument. The third is polyphonic, and almost Baroque, in character, but the harmony proceeds by variation without clear direction until it too breaks down.

Any contemporary composer is faced with the problem of how to conclude a piece or movement. Whatever the range of experience explored, or the musical language used, conclusions which derive neatly from the certainties of systems such as the diatonic or the serial run the risk of being out of tune with the nature of the age in which we live.

This three movement piece makes an attempt to explore certain aspects of the our modern experience, in the form of repetition, fragmentation, and rapidity and irregularity of change. Each movement proceeds towards its own particular point of breakdown.

The duet was written for the Aradia Cello Duo.