Revision and Reworking as Compositional Strategies
Portfolio of three sets of compositions, a commercially released CD, two conference papers and a pre-publication journal article.
- Submitting institution
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The University of Surrey
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 9004723_2
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2020
- URL
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https://ref2021uoa33portfolios_9004723_2.surrey.ac.uk/
- 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
- This multi-component output with supporting contextual information comprises scores of three versions of Dance Maze, a CD and two conference papers – Moving Backwards to Move Forwards and Composing with Two Voices. Contextual information comprises scores of Morning Music, Divertissements and Diversions 3, the CD booklet essay and a pre-publication version of a journal article One Into Three.
The research process explored reworking my existing music, creating groups of related works in which old and new coexist in an explicit aesthetic critique, and using another composer’s music in reworking my own. The process of discovery began with an improvisation workshop with trumpeter Simon Desbruslais. Tom Johnson’s Self-Similar Melodies (1996) informed the process of grafting the trumpet onto a pre-existing piano piece whilst lending it the autonomy to function alone. The creative context included Lou Harrison reworking his much earlier music (Miller 2005), Wolfgang Rihm’s ‘overpainting’ onto his existing pieces (Williams 2013) and Pierre Boulez’s many revisions with their implied aesthetic critiques (Salem 2014). Intellectual context was provided by scholarship on the purpose and meaning of revision (Parker 2006) and certain models of the self (see Moving Backwards to Move Forwards).
The creative outcomes comprise three versions of Dance Maze for piano, trumpet and piano and solo trumpet. As well as the trumpet overpainting, the duo functions as a critique of the piano original by rupturing its conventional climax-driven form. My claim for originality resides here: I have come across few examples of instances where composers’ reworkings explicitly challenge the aesthetic precepts of earlier versions. The use of another composer’s music as part of this process I also hold to be unusual.The conference papers provide context, technical insight and examine my reasons for revisiting earlier music.
Dance Maze was released on Resonus Classics and reviewed in Gramophone.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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