windfell - for solo violin
- Submitting institution
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University of Durham
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 114699
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- windfell was commissioned by violinist Mira Benjamin with research and development funding from PRS for Music Foundation’s Composer’s Fund. It was premiered in London in on 27.10.2017 and a commercial studio recording was released on Another Timbre on 31.05.2019. Arising from an initial image of a violin sounded not by a human player but by the action of the wind, windfell hypothesises an ‘ecological’ music, generating its material from the instrument’s ‘natural sounding’ – the brushing of its surfaces, the vibration of open strings and natural harmonics. The theme of human agency lies at the core of the work, which attempts to explore our embeddedness within the natural world: the player’s presence is made explicit not only through playing but through whistling and singing. The second half of the work consists predominantly of sequences of 3-part chords in Just Intonation (JI), enacting a ‘tuning-in’ of player and instrument to the natural harmonic spectrum. windfell was written in close collaboration with Benjamin, whose special abilities and research specialism in the area of tuning were the basis of its technical and expressive innovations. Most notably, singing and playing simultaneously in JI has not been attempted in this way before and required considerable collaborative research to find workable combinations of pitches and tuning strategies, building on and extending the work of JI-specialist composers such as Catherine Lamb and Marc Sabat. Other techniques, such as the ‘leaf-hand brushing’ of the opening, are unique to this work, connecting more closely with strategies and techniques of Free Improvisation than notated concert music. Finally the scale of the work (60 mins), and the control and stamina required to perform it successfully, are at the limits of current solo instrumental practice: an attempt to connect the reduced materials and expansive timescales of Wandelweiser with the precision of JI.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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