Flipp, for two saxophones (2011) by philipvenables
Year: 2011
Duration: 3 minutes
Orchestration: two of the same saxophones
Flipp was first performed on 24th May 2011 at BKA Theater, Berlin, Adrian Tully and Christoph Enzel, as part of the Unerhörte Musik series.
Posted in Chamber, Solo, Works
Tagged Adrian Tully, BKA Theater, Christoph, Duo, Flipp, Saxophone, Unerhörte Musik
I recently found out that one of my solo piano pieces has been shortlisted for the Presteigne Festival Composers’ Competition 2011. I wrote two more piano studies, based on material I used for Klaviertrio im Geiste, and submitted them in February. Alissa Firsova is going to workshop and record the pieces next Tuesday at Birmingham Conservatoire, and then they’ll announce the winner. Fingers crossed.
Once the competition is over I’ll add these Two Studies to my growing collection of piano studies. These two are another study in tremolo, and one in the use of pedals. They’re little ‘crystallisations’ of classical sonata movements (in this case, a scherzo and a rondo)… but without the fluff (particularly in the case of the rondo, which is very sparse). I’ll post up a recording soon and perusal score soon.
Year: 2010
Duration: 8 minutes
For any solo wind instrument. (Separate versions available for flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone and bassoon)
Metamorphoses after Britten was written for Melinda Maxwell for UYMP’s Signals volume of new music for oboe. It was first performed by Melinda at York University on 24th November 2010.
Scores available to purchase from www.musicroom.com
I – A mountain
II – Fixation
III – Flowers
IV – Fountains
Metamorphoses after Britten are just that: four miniatures, each inspired by one of Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for solo oboe. Each movement, over its short course, transforms gradually from one thing to another, ending, with the exception of Fountains, in a short, cathartic coda. Some of the movements also take specific musical elements from Britten’s pieces.
I very much viewed these pieces as musical Haiku, and in that sense I hope they embody a sense of peace, brevity and simplicity.
The oboe version of Metamorphoses after Britten is dedicated to Melinda Maxwell.
The saxophone version of Metamorphoses after Britten, with an additional movement, is dedicated to Vicki and Andrew Vaughan.
Duration: c. 17 minutes
Piano solo
Piano Studies were written for Daniel Browell for performance at the 2007 Park Lane Group Series, 8th January 2007, at the Purcell Room, The South Bank Centre, London. Two more studies were added in 2011, written for Alissa Firsova and re-workings of two movements from Klaviertrio im Geiste.
I. – For chords: weight, legato and stretching
II. – For staccato chords
III. – For tremoli
IV. – For repeated notes
V. – Scherzo (for tremolo)
VI – Rondo (for use of pedals)
These studies can be performed in any order deemed musically sound by the performer.
‘The boy with the moon in his eyes’ is a growing set of studies for solo piano. They have grown from ‘The girl with the sun in her head’, a very short study piece written for the pianist Sarah Nicolls in 2003. This piece took Debussy’s Étude pour les notes répétées as its starting point (and in the current set an adapted version of it is called ‘For repeated notes’). Debussy’s inclination to make piano studies more than just exercises but musically intelligent and expressive pieces continued to influence me during the composition of the three later studies written for Daniel Browell. Most of the studies are descriptively named in the same vein as Debussy’s Études.
