Notturno / Abschiedslied I
This short piano piece was written for Theo Vidgen. It is made up almost entirely of quiet, pulsating dyads and occasional flurries at the top of the piano's range – an abstracted memory of cicadas shaking in the still summer air, light vanishing around the earth’s curve, Schoenberg op. 19, no. 2, Sciarrino’s Notturni, leaf-cast shadow and, between the windows of the sea, dusk-lit figures gathering left-over light.
Notturno/Abschiedslied I was premiered at 3pm on 26 November 2009 by Olivia Jageurs as part of the New Music North West Festival (23-27 November) in a concert celebrating Peter Maxwell Davies's new role as patron of Manchester University Music Society. Here is a video of that concert; my piece is about 25 minutes in.
Duration: approx. 5'
Instrumentation: solo piano.
