'hollow yellow willow' (2017) for symphony orchestra and electronics (10’)
- Submitting institution
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Royal Northern College of Music
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 23C
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2019
- 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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1 - Composition
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- ‘hollow yellow willow’ is a composition for symphony orchestra and electronics sounds concerned with balancing easily discernible severe formalism with diatonic poetic musical expression. As such this connects to an interest in the extreme restrictions of Oulipo and Oulipo-like literature and the poetry of long-term collaborator Matthew Welton, who exploits tensions between a transparent poetic vocabulary and severe formalism though variation form and other patterns applied to text.
The strings are precisely distributed antiphonally in four groups, easily facilitated by every part being playable on violin, viola, or cello. The piece takes advantage of the antiphonal arrangement of the four horns and trumpets, trombones, and tuba. The music follows a pattern of accelerating antiphonal movement. There are two chorales, one from brass and one for strings and electronics, organised canonically and regularly interrupted by the woodwind writing which, in contrast, gradually slows down. As the antiphonal movement accelerates in canon, when both chorales are on the same side of the orchestra, one of them become a whole-tone cluster and this process alternates between the brass and the strings. This, combined with the distinct harmonic content of each chorale and the electronic sounds coming from speakers on either side of the orchestra, ensures that the antiphonal movement is prioritised and leads to resonant harmonic juxtapositions and collisions. The music is inspired, in part, by architect, writer, and conceptual artist Dan Graham’s performance work using two-way mirrors and, through the movement of sound and interaction with electronics, the work considers notions of illusion, presence, and absence.
‘hollow yellow willow’ was premiered in November 2017 by the BBC Philharmonic with conductor Mark Heron and has been extensively featured on BBC Radio 3 though their Hear and Now programme and across the schedule as part of New Year New Music 2019.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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