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Technical Notice
| Classical Composer: | Bryars, Gavin |
|---|---|
| Lyricist: | Morgan, Edwin |
| Work: | Piano Concerto, "The Solway Canal" |
| Year Composed: | 2010 |
| Instrumentation: | solo pf, male choir(TTBB, 18vv), 2+2picc 0 1+bcl 1+cbn - 4 0 2 1, timp, 2perc, hp, str(12 10 8 6 4) |
| Publisher: | Schott Music |
| Duration: | 00:28:00 |
| Period: | Contemporary |
| Work Category: | Concerto |
Work Information
Available Recording(s)
Perhaps the most striking dualisms in Gavin Bryars' works are to be found in The Solway Canal for piano, choir and orchestra, a highly coloured and almost impressionist work. Its instrumentation might mislead the listener of expecting a soloist traditionally competing with the forces of the orchestra. However, the opposite is the case: the piano part displays no large outbursts of notes, but it does fundamentally the opposite. It takes on the unexpected rôle of a guide instead, soberly leading the orchestra and the choir into new territories of colour. Landscapes all pass by in a floating way, as if in a dream. Bryars radically re-defines piano virtuosity here as the degree of complete control over the instrument, expressed through touch, sound colour, lyricism and intensity. The choir mystically fills up these colours; the evocative words of the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) are sometimes to be heard clearly, at other times drifting away in the flowing river of sound. Although, again, the overall feel is traditionally tonal, the harmonic progressions and melodic lines are, on closer listening, often highly chromatic. At recurring moments, instruments create a seemingly disjointed tapestry of unrelated singing sound, mildly chaotic, reminiscent of the works by Charles Ives, or perhaps even Iannis Xenakis. However, the very soft dynamics at those spots conceals the work's radicalism.
Writer: Ralph van Raat
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