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Sheet Music: ScoreDinner dances : for string orchestra / by Tim Dargaville.by Tim Dargaville (2009)
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Product details
In 2004 I was commissioned by the Melbourne Theatre Company to provide music for the production of "Dinner" by English playwright Moira Buffini. The play, essentially a very black comedy of manners, is set around a large dinner table containing several courses of disgustingly inedible food. As the invited guests dissect each other in polite (and not so polite) conversation whilst trying to digest the primordial slime soup entrée and the frozen waste dessert, we learn that the storyline to "Dinner" has some very dark and disturbing twists. Humour is used to deliver some nasty existential punches, as we witness how the hosts despise each other, how a vegetarian guest is forced to kill and then eat her main course, and how the waiter reveals himself to be a hired assassin.
The music for this production of "Dinner" was conceived to be a series of short interludes interspersed between scenes, sometimes allowing for reflection, sometimes ramping up the drama. The six pieces, originally scored for string quintet, are intended to be strangely familiar, but with unexpected twists and turns, as if they were recorded background music being influenced by the action. In the version of "Dinner Dances" for string orchestra, I have taken the same material from the original quintet, and reorchestrated it, treating it spatially within the ensemble, exploring conversational patterns that are so much a part of the original play.
Published by: Australian Music Centre — 1 facsimile score (41p. -- A4 (portrait))
Difficulty: Medium
In 6 movements.
First performance by Arcko Symphonic Ensemble, Timothy Phillips at Pulling Strings (Richmond Uniting Church) on 30 May 2009
Includes programme notes and performance directions.
Typeset edition.
ISMN: 979-0-720150-48-2
Related products
This work is also available in the following products:
Parts: Dinner dances : for string orchestra / by Tim Dargaville.
This work also exists as the following versions:
- Quintets: 2 Violins, viola, cello, double bass
- Browse other works for String orchestra
- Browse other works by Tim Dargaville
Analysis & Media
- Resonate Article: Arcko Symphonic Project - Pulling Strings
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