Sunsetting Shadows
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YouTube Performance Video
Jihyeon Lim-piano 1, Hunter Bailey Watts-piano 2, and Joshua Hill-percussion. |
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Programme Note
Sunsetting Shadows is comprised for two pianos, percussion and pre-recorded electronics imbued with the acoustic properties originating from a technique known as spectral analysis. Its underlying concept is influenced by the imagery depicted from the elongated shadows cast by the setting sun. The length of such shadows has for millennia been an indicator for the passing of time, and the sunset in many cultures, proclaimed as the end of the day.
The composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), was well known for his sensory condition synaesthesia, where the anomalous blending of sight and sound would cause him to ‘hear colours’. He also held a deep interest in Eastern philosophy and music, as well as a series of symmetrical scales known as the modes of limited transposition. The third of these in its fourth transposition is described by Messiaen as projecting the colours ‘orange, red and a bit of blue’; the prominent palette of the sunset. This mode, known as 34, forms the basis of the work’s pitch material.
A total of four combinations of pitches from mode 34 are sustained silently in the pianos during the work’s introduction. The sympathetic resonances initiated when prominent, rapid gestures are performed on the pianos then embody the work’s thematic material. Initially, these four harmonic areas are applied in the instrumental parts only, but once the pre-recorded component enters, these sympathetic resonances are re-synthesised using additive synthesis processes in the work's electronic backdrop.
The rapid descending scales of work’s final section contain the only explicit statements of mode 34, during which the two pianos alternate in their lowest registers between rhythmically driven monophonic statements of the pitch classes B, G and E♭. These pitch classes evenly divide the recurring intervallic patterns of mode 34, and conclusively summate the work’s entire pitch structure.
Peter McNamara 2017-22
Instrumentation: 2 pianos, percussion (vibraphone, bongos, bass drum), & pre-recorded electronics.
Programme Note
Sunsetting Shadows is comprised for two pianos, percussion and pre-recorded electronics imbued with the acoustic properties originating from a technique known as spectral analysis. Its underlying concept is influenced by the imagery depicted from the elongated shadows cast by the setting sun. The length of such shadows has for millennia been an indicator for the passing of time, and the sunset in many cultures, proclaimed as the end of the day.
The composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), was well known for his sensory condition synaesthesia, where the anomalous blending of sight and sound would cause him to ‘hear colours’. He also held a deep interest in Eastern philosophy and music, as well as a series of symmetrical scales known as the modes of limited transposition. The third of these in its fourth transposition is described by Messiaen as projecting the colours ‘orange, red and a bit of blue’; the prominent palette of the sunset. This mode, known as 34, forms the basis of the work’s pitch material.
A total of four combinations of pitches from mode 34 are sustained silently in the pianos during the work’s introduction. The sympathetic resonances initiated when prominent, rapid gestures are performed on the pianos then embody the work’s thematic material. Initially, these four harmonic areas are applied in the instrumental parts only, but once the pre-recorded component enters, these sympathetic resonances are re-synthesised using additive synthesis processes in the work's electronic backdrop.
The rapid descending scales of work’s final section contain the only explicit statements of mode 34, during which the two pianos alternate in their lowest registers between rhythmically driven monophonic statements of the pitch classes B, G and E♭. These pitch classes evenly divide the recurring intervallic patterns of mode 34, and conclusively summate the work’s entire pitch structure.
Peter McNamara 2017-22
Instrumentation: 2 pianos, percussion (vibraphone, bongos, bass drum), & pre-recorded electronics.