Output details

Opus opera

Opus Opera. Commissioned by Quatuor Danel, funded by Arts Council England, 2008. Duration 51'. Performance/recording/score ii+86pp. Premiered 13/3/2009 Manchester University by Quatuor Danel. Further performances: 19/11/2010 Manchester (Danels); 10/4/2011 "Premieres of the Season" Festival, Kiev (Ricochet). Issued on Prima facie CD015, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon.

Opus opera is the result of research into how a string quartet can integrate operatic structure, forms, scale and emotional narratives. Analysis of musical characterisation in operas by Britten, Bartok, Berg, Menotti and Henze was compared with personality characterisation in Ives' String Quartet No.2, late Beethoven string quartets and Nielsen's concertos, resulting in new macro-structures ("acts": chronological concentrations of personality dramas) and micro-structures (sections within "scenes" which shift narrative direction via recitatives and physical-action symbolism). Internalised theatre in concert music (Birtwistle's Secret Theatre) was critically researched regarding perception of extramusical drama as a means of sustaining listener attention. Absurdist theatre (Artaud, Ionesco) and Woody Allen stand-up comedy (Moose sketch) were analysed for the timing of non-sequiturs and incongruities. Finally, analysis of Wishart's acousmatic Tongues of Fire revealed how recorded vocal transformations and extreme textural contrasts articulate structures in non-verbal spoken material, providing the structure for Opus opera's initial scene and subsequent techniques.

The application of multiple pitch-grammars resulted from researching modern literature (Twain, Faulkner, Joyce) which weaves together vernacular and formal speech patterns; dialogues are carried out in juxta- and superimposed tonal, atonal, whole tone and cluster-aggregate harmonic grammars. Analysis into depiction of social music-making via Mahler symphonies and Ives' works provided a contrasting basis to Act III, Scenes 12 and 14.

Perceived and actual experiences structure relied on the integration of this research as the principal means to maintain listener attention over an expansive scale.

Duplicate to a Danel performance submission. Here to be assessed as compositional research.