Clarinet, Flute and Bassoon
Alexander’s Elements (2018) 6:00
Alexander the Great (356 -323 BC) spread Greek knowledge as he travelled south towards Egypt, and east to India. The academies that he established taught knowledge about a connection between man and the plant world from a moral perspective. They taught knowledge of the elements: the earthly in human bones, the fiery and the watery in the heart, the circulation of the blood and body fluids, and the airy in breathing. Commissioned by Sirius Ensemble.
Bassoon, Flute, Oboe, Trumpet, Percussion (1), Alto, Violin I & II, Viola
Do You Think I’m Beautiful? (2016) 2:36
Juliana turns to Henry Vayne with a challenging question: now that she is nearly a hundred years old, is she, a former beauty, still beautiful? The aristocratic Korean genre style of gagok court music suggests both the imperial nature of Juliana and that East Asia had been an influence upon the development of the aesthetic of Venice. I used gagok’s meter of repeated cycles of 7 and 3 beats and the Korean gyemenjo scale (D, Eb, Gb, Ab,Bb). Gagok is alluded to in the instruments that suggest Korean instruments, and in the pacing of the music.
From the OperaThe Aspern Papers,libretto by David Malouf
Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon (Contrabassoon), Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Timpani, Percussion (1), Alto, Counter Tenor, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabass
Juliana and Jeffrey’s Love Duet (2016) 2:44
The love duet alludes to the first known opera Orfeo, composed by Monteverdi, Orpheus and Eurydice met in the Underworld; likewise Juliana travels there by gondola in her dying delirium to meet her long-dead lover Jeffrey Aspern. She and Jeffrey call to one another. Juliana is now elderly and over the years the pitch of her voice has lowered. Because Jeffrey has been dead for decades his voice has become higher. This is certainly not the first opera, but perhaps this is the first operatic love duet in which the male sings at a higher pitch than the female.
From the OperaThe Aspern Papers,libretto by David Malouf