800 Million Heartbeats
for piano trio
(2007)
duration: 8’
GRT • 133
score available soon from
Australian Music
Centre
program note
Many living
creatures lives apparently last for around 800 million
heartbeats. Birds like the hummingbird have a very rapid
wing motion - so fast that it becomes a blur. It also has a
correspondingly fast heart rate and lives a shorter (and
arguably more intense) life. By contrast, the sloth has a
very slow heart rate, is given to much sleep and has a
relatively long life. If humans had only 800 million
heartbeats in a life, we would die young (probably in our
twenties). But the actual figure is only nominal. It
becomes a heightened metaphor for a life, measured in
heartbeats, and the journeys that fill its course. This
piece was originally composed in 2000 for the Southbank
Contemporary Music Ensemble, then as a quintet for Brisbane
quintet, Topology, and this adaptation was made especially
for The Yarra Trio to premiere in 2008.