New Roads, Old Destinations II
for oboe [or bassoon] and
piano (1997)
duration: 7’
GRT • 038 / 039
CD
available
New Roads, Old
Destinations
Nick Fitter (bassoon), Tony Lais (piano)
Khamaileon
audio sample
score
available from
Australian Music
Centre
program note
This piece is
inspired by M. C. Escher’s famous 1960 lithograph,
Ascending and
Descending,
showing stairs which descend impossibly back to an upper
starting point. This illusion can also be found in music.
One of the most famous examples is the chorus,
Non Morir
Seneca, from
Monteverdi’s The
Coronation of Poppea, where chromatically rising lines are
dovetailed to give the impression that the music is
constantly getting higher and higher, when in fact it is
merely treading a metaphoric waterwheel. More recently, Wim
Mertens’ solo piano piece Alef, from the recording Jérémiades, combines a descending sequence with
gradual phrase augmentation to induce a sense of
uncertainty on the part of the listener as to whether the
music has returned to the ‘top’ or whether it has
progressed elsewhere.
Ambiguity is also at the heart of this piece. In
New Roads, Old
Destinations II,
each time the piano phrases descend further (new roads) and
yet still arrive back at the same cadential motive (old
destinations). In between the ‘new roads’ are refrains
based on the same sequential motive but these never expand
beyond 4 bars and also wind up at ‘old destinations’. The
bassoon, by contrast, gradually ‘ascends’ from the bottom
note, Bb, up into the higher register of the instrument,
creating an inverse symmetry with the piano.
review
”Pro Arte
artistic director, Jeffrey Crellin, partnered Almonte in
Greenbaum's New
roads, old destinations II, a brief exercise in opposing pitch strata
during which the oboe part is well stretched in terms of
range, breath and some sound–production novelties.”
Clive O’Connell, The Age, September
2005