Performance of 'Three Faces in the Crowd' by Rory Boyle
- Submitting institution
-
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 2853236
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Glasgow
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- November
- Year of first performance
- 2018
- URL
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOn9PNzIiTk
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
3
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This output is part of a longstanding research practice of collaborating with composers to realise new work, often leading to a first performance of the music and/or a reference recording that can contribute to the scholarly infrastructure for new music. In this case, the Rembrandt Piano Trio, in which I am pianist, commissioned from Rory Boyle a piece that we hoped would act as a calling card for our ensemble. Boyle wrote a three-movement work called 'Three Faces in the Crowd', inspired by Rembrandt’s painting ‘The Night Watch’, and taking a face from the painting as the starting point for each movement.
Our investigation centred on how to lift this music from score for the first time, working with Boyle to achieve the realisation of his ideas. Some of this work involved developing practical performance solutions: the notation of the end of the second movement is an example, having been developed by the performers, in collaboration with Boyle, but other suggestions from the performers were also incorporated in the score. Boyle’s score presented challenges that are not immediately apparent in the surface details of the notation: in the first movement, for example, the complex interplay of the parts at speed (see, for example, page 3 of the score) required careful management. More generally, the score presented a curious tension between precision and deliberate obscurity – much like the painting that inspired it. So, while much of the music is very carefully detailed, other elements – such as the tempo/mood indications ‘Enigmatico’ and ‘Birichino’ - are deliberately indeterminate, presenting further interpretative challenges.
We performed ‘Three Faces’ with a high-definition reproduction of the painting visible to the audience and comments from the audience indicated that they felt an affinity between music and painting.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -