Output details

Kommos. Composition for solo oboe, string quartet, doublebass and piano. Commissioned by the Daegu Contemporary Music Festival, Korea. Premiere: Ensemble Eclat, Daegu Contemporary Music Festival, 23 June 2011. Score Only. Attached Programme Note evidences date of dissemination.

Throughout its composition this piece had no title, and did not reference any extra-musical ideas. The primary objective was to explore, within a free atonal environment, possible relationships between ensemble materials (homogeneous and heterogeneous), and contrasting decorative solo oboe material, in combination with the mediating role of the piano. This contributed to an ongoing exploration into ways of juxtaposing vertical and horizontal musical elements, and what unfamiliar soundscapes my be evolved in the process. The main research element was necessitated by the decision that the piece would be declamatory and ritualistic in character, inevitably raising questions concerning the dangers of expressive cliche. A number of preliminary drafts were produced, and comparatively analysed to identify precise ‘architectonic’ substructures (pitch, duration, or dynamic based ‘nuclei’, repetitions, etc) that, through their relationships, create or avert linear and gestural predictability or ambiguity, and allow control over tension and complexity within material. Accordingly, techniques were developed to guarantee a high degree of melodic ambiguity in the solo part through the unpredictability of gesture, a high level of tension in the harmonic environment, and a high degree of complexity of ensemble at critical points. The title Kommos (attached after completion), refers to episodes in classical Greek tragedy when the protagonist alternates with the chorus in passages of highly intense poetry. The communicative power of this device in contemporary music as much as classical drama, suggests an archetypal scenario, not dependent upon specific content, and although not a literal counterpart to a Kommos in Greek drama, the oboe is analogous to a protagonist, the piano to a deuteragonist, the strings serving metaphorical as chorus.