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"LIV" [5MB .ogg file]LIV is Roman numerals for 54, and also a 1931 poem by E. E. Cummings, which had such a profound effect when Fabrizia read it to me that I decided I must set it to music. It was swiftly composed from 1998-12-27 until New Year's Eve for a competition where the rules called for a piece with a maximum duration of three minutes. So while everyone else was enjoying the festive season, I was locked in my loft pedalling away at the harmonium and trying out new ideas, until the piece was finished four days later. It was the best Christmas present I could want.
It is composed in three linked sections corresponding to the poem's three stanzas, and is written in a complex contrapuntal style developed from my piano piece Message (1994), with each instrument playing tiny fragments that weave together a larger tapestry. The serial technique (again, in tonal disguise) gradually gives way to a lilting chord-pair, mimicking the "breathing" at the poem's end. The piano part is very minimal, and simple enough for even me to play. I like the balance of flute and clarinet with violin and cello, and along with the piano (making up the so-called Pierrot ensemble) this evokes association with the dreamy sound world of Schoenberg's late Romantic (but sadly unknown and unfinished) 1905 masterpiece of autumnal ardour "Ein Stelldichein" ('a rendezvous', for oboe, clarinet, violin, cello, piano - the first ever ambient music?).
At Dartington International
Summer School in 1999 I was lucky enough to round up some players and a
conductor, to rehearse and record it, and we gave what was billed as
The World's Shortest Concert consisting solely of this piece,
played twice through by popular request. Our choir master
Ivor Bolton told me
afterwards that he enjoyed it, as did the players. Later in 2001, some
members of
The Fibonacci Sequence performed
it to a larger audience with me on piano, before Ravel's Chansons
Madecasses (without me on piano, hehe!), and it was once again warmly
received. This latter recording is available, along with me introducing it
and reading out the poem:
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"LIV" [5MB .ogg file]Tags:
spiritual,
Contemporary,
harmonic poems
[Recorded live in concert 2001-08-02 13:00 in The Dance Studio,
Dartington Hall using two
AKG C1000S mics into
Tascam DA-P1 portable
DAT recorder]
{Conductor -
Anna
Noakes; Violin -
Jacqueline Shave;
Cello - Justin Pearson; Flute - Esther Wong; Clarinet - Ben Cramer; Piano - Malcolm Smith}
This concert version is almost note perfect and gives a good blend of instruments from just the two mics. I may one day add another recording from our rehearsals.
[Scores (and maybe one day more recordings) will eventually be available]
Your feedback is appreciated (but no need to bother asking "Where are the MP3's?")
© copyleft
Malcolm Smith 2004-12-23 - last updated 2011-04-26