Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Giles Swayne
Solo (1986)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
Commissioned by Julian Bream
Programme Note
Solo was commissioned by Julian Bream and written in 1986. During the first half of the 1980s I had trimmed my musical language drastically, eliminating all harmonic complexity and dissonance, and restricting myself to a modal sound-world and audibly physical rhythms – often derived from my interest in African music (though never an attempt to imitate it). Canto for cello, Magnificat, Riff-Raff, A Song for Haddi, Symphony for Small Orchestra, Naaotwa Lala and Missa Tiburtina are examples of this period of radically reduced vocabulary. By the time I started work on Solo I had achieved the purpose of washing my ears out, and was ready to re-enter (cautiously) and broader sound-world.
Solo remains within a modal context, and much of it is purely pentatonic; but the mode is gradually transformed and extended so that the full complement of twelve notes becomes available, and therefore more clearly focused.
© Giles Swayne
Solo remains within a modal context, and much of it is purely pentatonic; but the mode is gradually transformed and extended so that the full complement of twelve notes becomes available, and therefore more clearly focused.
© Giles Swayne