An Angel Bowed Backward
for viola [or cello] and piano
(1988/91)
duration: 10’
GRT • 003 / 024
CD available
Greenbaum Hindson
Peterson
Rodney
Lovenfosse (viola), Glenn Riddle (piano)
GHP9501
audio sample
score
available from
Australian Music
Centre
program note
The title of this
work is taken from a poem by Ross Baglin, with whom the
composer often collaborates:
An angel bowed backward
A fly's
broken buzz,
Kindling crying
For the gasping flats
The thin brown cloth
That flares in screams,
An angel
Bowed backward
By a clip of light
The opening cello solo is constructed around a scale where
each subsequent interval is a semitone greater than the
last (minor 2nd, major 2nd, min 3rd, maj 3rd, perfect 4th).
This scale gradually fans out and then folds into a
chorale-like cadence. These two elements become fundamental
components within an essentially asymmetrical jigsaw
(though externally the piece could also be viewed as
fast–slow–fast with a slow introduction and fast coda).
Rhythmically, the two fast sections are concerned with
re–defining the same motivic material within different
metrical groupings, sometimes in overt rhythmic modulation
and at other times seeking to superimpose triple and duple
groupings like an Escher sketch, which could be viewed
back–to–front. The middle slow section represents the eye
of the storm, and here motion is suspended rather than
propelled.