for solo guitar (1997)
duration: 5’
GRT • 034
YouTube
digital album available
The Thin Blue Line
Ken Murray plays the solo guitar music of Stuart Greenbaum
Lyrebird Productions, LB151217
ABC Classics, digital, 2018
score available from
Australian Music Centre
program note
Rushall train station is just across the road from where I was living in 1997. When I first started ‘dashing off a quick piece’ for Ken Murray (who was present with guitar in hand during the entire writing process), we jokingly referred to it as a rush job, and so the title stuck. But dozens of sessions (and coffees) later, I began to wonder if the piece would ever be finished. Every little motivic extension or fingering alternative seemed like a set of Russian dolls - each solution containing a few more slightly smaller puzzles. In any event, the title did start to ring true in the sense that the piece endeavors to maintain a ‘train–like’ propulsion throughout.
review
“Rushall Express refers to a railway station near the composer’s home and as he tried to ‘dash’ off the music it seems to take on the character of train music with its internal propulsion. Again, it was Ken Murray for whom it was written and who was the inspiration and guide behind its progress.”
Gary Higginson, Music Web International, August 2018