Walking around Adelaide early in the morning listening to magpies
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Piano
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A reflective piano solo with magpie warbles
Program note:
It’s six o’clock in the morning. The feet know where they’re going, but the mind wanders, still half-asleep. Bottebrush, bitumen, jacaranda, Stobie pole – all barely register in the semi-darkness. The sun waits behind the Adelaide hills and the streets are quiet.
But listen: a magpie is warbling… © David John Lang 2016 Description of piece:
The environment and mood of my early morning walks around Adelaide are the inspiration for this music. It is mostly written in a very tonal, postminimalist language, with an episodic structure of recurring material, always slightly different at each iteration, and always using a subtly unpredictable numbers of repeats. There is a three-note ostinato played most of the way through – but stopping for certain key passages. This musical language is used to capture the freshness, quiet, solitude and almost timeless sense of space experienced on my morning walks.
Interspersed through the work are five ‘magpie’ episodes, in which the ostinato is stilled and fast, non-diatonic phrases warble away in the treble in rough imitation of Australian magpie song. These mysterious episodes are the heart of the piece. This work was first performed by Hugo Selles in the wonderfully picturesque Ukaria at Mount Barker Summit (South Australia), on 12 February 2017. I'd like to thank Hugo for the opportunity to compose this work, and for his performance of it. The above recording is of a performance by Elsabeth Lang (back when she was Elsabeth Parkinson) in Elder Hall, Adelaide, for my 2018 PhD recital, recorded by Ray Thomas. |
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