Output details

Six Mediaeval Lyrics [composition issued in print] : for women's choir

This composition is in six movements occupying 25 minutes; the texts are anonymous and in Mediaeval Latin; the world premiere was given by The Crossing, Philadelphia (USA), 2 January 2011. The Crossing subsequently issued the work on CD, included here for reference.

_Six Mediaeval Lyrics_ continues my long-standing research into the phonetic deconstruction of texts as the basis for compositions which treat the resulting sounds in a musical context. This particular project extended the linguistic domain to include Mediaeval Latin (in a previous piece, _Metamporphoses_, I had worked with Classical Latin); additional complications arose because the texts had been chosen to maximise variety in character and formal design and because I imposed a strict system of synthetic modes. Overall, the six pieces proceed from a scrutiny of plosives and fricatives (as in the /s/, /t/ and /k/ that are extracted and emphasized in the opening movement) to a concentration on pure vowels (in the final piece I mapped vowel formations into triads and their voicings). Changing relationships between solo, section, and choir constitute a second compositional parameter, designed in counterpoint to the phonetic analysis. The work was refined in rehearsals with Donald Nally, the remarkable director of The Crossing, and the notation was adjusted slightly after a second performance by the Latvian Radio Choir.