Output details

Things that are blue, things that are white and things that are black

This 30-minute work develops research with Sarah Nicolls into the elaboration of the pianist’s performance environment, using technology. The piano is augmented with a sampler, which triggers sounds associated with the acoustic piano impossible in a normal acoustic performance situation (for example retuned notes, chords that would require more than two hands). The setup is contextualised within a large ensemble, and the pianist also plays an altered/prepared acoustic piano. This confusion of performance physicality and aural experience is mirrored in the ensemble by instruments triggering samples of pre-prepared music, and instruments recording and looping themselves live. The piece is a response to Paul Auster’s 'The New York Trilogy', drawing parallels between the gumshoe noir and its reimagining, and a perversion of the 19th century piano concerto. The questions of confused and hidden identities from the original source are a starting point for the hidden sounds in the electric piano, prepared piano, and recorded/recording technology. The illusion of a substantial number of instruments alongside the large violin section (16+) is designed as a fractured version of the 19th century concerto orchestra. As with the sampler instrument from an earlier collaboration, the technology takes simple starting points and explores them to extreme situations. Simple ideas of live looping (which lead to numerous lines of counterpoint) required bespoke software, developed in collaboration with David Sheppard. The middle movement is the most explicit example in Goves’ concert music of the aesthetic ideas and approaches of his collaborations with DJ and composer, Mira Calix.

Première: 3 June 2010, Queen Elizabeth Hall: The London Sinfonietta, Sarah Nicolls, pianos; André de Ridder, conductor. Broadcast 10 July 2010 BBC Radio 3 (‘Hear and Now’). Second performance: 19 November 2011, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival: The London Sinfonietta, RNCM String Ensemble; Sarah Nicolls, pianos; André de Ridder, conductor.