CD: The School of natural philosophy / Michael Kieran Harvey collection [2008] : Product : Australian Music Centre

CD

The School of natural philosophy / Michael Kieran Harvey collection

Published by Move Records — 2008 [MD 3324] — 1 CD (74 min.)
Sales Availability: $27.27— Add to Cart
Library Availability: CD 2009 — Available for loan

Featured Australian works

The school of natural philosophy — solo piano, by Martin Friedel
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 24 mins, 24 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, Melbourne, on 2008.

Dances and devilment and sunlit airs — solo piano, by Graham Hair
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 2 mins, 48 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, Melbourne, on 2008.

Under Aldebaran (1984) — solo piano, by Graham Hair
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 3 mins, 54 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, Melbourne, on 2008.

Wild cherries and honeycomb — solo piano, by Graham Hair
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 5 mins, 35 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, Melbourne, on 2008.

Boyd panels (2002) — solo piano, by Douglas Knehans
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 13 mins, 30 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, Melbourne, on 2008.

Coruscations (1971) for piano solo, by Richard Meale
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (Arranger)Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 8 mins, 22 sec.

Also includes: 'Triptico' by Hilda Paredes.

Product details

Michael Kieran Harvey plays new music for keyboard

All my life I have been fascinated by the interaction of science and art, especially with music. In an age where art music seems to have been relegated to the area of palliative care by "market forces", the uncompromising approach of some composers still willing to embrace science and the natural world seems to me very much in the spirit of the Enlightenment: to oppose the monolithic hegemonies of church, state and ideology, and instead fight for pluralism and individual freedom, to think for oneself, and to pursue one's curiosity.

Martin Friedel is one such composer - a trained scientist, he is also one of the few Australian composers able to earn his living purely from composing. His School pieces are brief but compelling snapshots of discoveries unimaginable without the Enlightenment. Stars and our relationship to nature are the undercurrents of Graham Hair's 3 extant transcendental etudes. Douglas Knehans' Boyd Panels were written at Bundanon, and conjure up the stillness, diversity and playfulness of the natural world, so breathtakingly evident in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. The failure of the Biosphere project is a reminder of how reliant we are on millions of other species for our survival on Earth, and in Australia this species diversity is increasingly only possible through private oases like Bundanon. Surreal images of nature like Boyd's crucified trees link in my mind to Paredes' Triptico, where the Calligram, or beautiful symbol, could be the intricate equations of string theory, or A Contra Luz, against the light, could represent the bending of light by gravity.

This makes Coruscations an appropriate inclusion, especially as the recent explanation for the Auroras surrounding the earth are "magnetic reconnections", the result of magnetic field lines colliding and releasing large amounts of kinetic energy towards earth. I grew up with an expectation of a lifetime pursuit of music which was propelled by the idea of the end of posterity. The awe-inspiring scale of such cosmic forces makes human hubris seem pitifully trite, yet makes human creativity and love seem all the more endearingly mysterious.

— Michael Kieran Harvey

Duration: 74 min.

Booklet includes programme notes and biographical information on composers and performer.