Brad Gill

Like Writing on Water

per pianoforte solo

215-12
Like Writing on Water
five variations on Weberns op. 27

for piano solo

for Daniel Herscovitch

Programme notes:

Like Writing on Water was composed in response to a commission by the excellent Sydney based pianist Daniel Herscovitch to compose a work
to be included in a CD consisting of variations stretching back several centuries. A stipulation from the CDs benefactor was that it include the
piano variations of Anton Webern (op. 27), and Daniel subsequently suggested I write a set of variations on Weberns piece. I took this as an
opportunity both to really interrogate Weberns work (what is it actually about? what is actually varied?) and to explore and apply a research
interest in atonal theory, an area I have taught for a number of years but not explored in any depth in my own composition. And so I have taken a
largely analytical compositional approach in these five variations, drawing out the potential and possibilities in Weberns source material, whilst
engaging with the musical surface in different ways. The surface engagement is evident in the titles of some of the five variations movements:
Crush and Interweave, for example, and anyone familiar with the original will detect transformed expressions of the familiar harmonic
content and linear expressions of the works twelve-not row. More abstract variations include regrouping the row into tetrachords, enacting
various cyclic patterns, and drawing musical spaces as a basis for material, giving me a diversity of musical ideas to work with that nonetheless
derive entirely from Weberns limited material. Daniel kindly pointed out in his own remarks for the premiere performance that such an
approach embodies the German term Vernderung, which is actually the title of both Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Bach's Goldberg
Variations, and connects more with the English transformation.

Another ideational layer to Like Writing on Water is an engagement with ideas expressed by the American Chan monk Chang Wen, Music from
the Chan Mind. He proposes a mode of listening to (or performing) music in which one listens to the music with mindfulness, attending to each
sound as it arises and falls like listening to water flow, without subsequently grasping or retaining in mind the sensual experience. This
resonated with a similar Buddhist expression concerning negative emotions: that one can experience them with a range of fixity, right up to
letting them go immediately, leaving no trace like writing on water. A compositional goal in this set of variations, then, is to compose music
that encourages a moment-to-moment focussed listening leaving no trace or residue for the listener following the experience of the piece. Daniel,
again in his premiere preamble, remarked that for him, a further meaningful connection (and one that hadnt occurred to me) was that both
Weberns and my sets of variations were created by, in a sense, religious composers Webern Catholicism making itself felt in his work,
Chinese Zen in mine.

The Five Variations are:

1. Crush
2. Trails
3. Interweave
4. Like Writing on Water
5. Distance

Brad Gill
Sydney, 2015


 
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 Please keep us informed of any public performance of this composition.
Please send an e-mail to info@taukay.it indicating location, date of performance
and names of performers. Thank you.

Si prega cortesemente di dare notizia dellesecuzione in pubblico di questa composizione

allindirizzo e-mail info@taukay.it indicando luogo, data dellesecuzione
e nome degli strumentisti. Grazie

Campione gratuito

2015
Taukay Edizioni Musicali
via del Torre, 57/5
33047 Remanzacco - Udine
ITALIA
www.taukay.it

Collana I nuovi Suoni - 240

Cat. 215-12
ISSN: 2279-7726