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Memory of Place

This work comprises three short songs for baritone and piano, setting poetry by the York-based writer Daniela Nunnari with whom I have collaborated on three song cycles (a series which form a part of the ‘21st Century Songbook’ project co-ordinated by composer David Power). Memory of Place was first performed by Paul Carey Jones and Ian Ryan for a concert in the Late Music series in December 2009; it has since been performed by two other singers and recorded by the original performers for release on the Cadenza label in 2012. The three texts represent the poet’s response to a series of visual installations by the artist Keiko Mukiade, but (whilst much of my work is shaped by visual influences) in this instance I was primarily concerned with an exploration of the more abstract ‘imaginary landscape’ possibilities offered by the text.

1) Floating makes extensive use of the baritone’s upper register: flautando, without expression. The music closely follows the ternary architecture of the poem.

2) Frozen is the most substantial song of the three, deconstructive rather than dialectic in its unresolved opposition of musical materials. Those materials include a ‘found object’, eight bars extracted from Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’ broken down into short fragments, like half-forgotten memories, nostalgic and elegiac in tone. This music is interwoven around a syllabic, declamatory ‘chorale’ and both are framed by a dissonant, bell-like incantation for piano.

3) If Wishes were Willows was intended to simplify and clarify the preceding songs, whilst offering little in the sense of resolution. Based on a harmonic ostinato of rising minor thirds it presents a plaintive lament, accompanied only by the relentless steady pulsing of the piano. The lack of resolution is further emphasised by the abrupt ending, torn off rather than curtailed.