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Work

Fragility and Sonorousness : for piano

by Bruce Crossman (2021)

Work Overview

Fragility and Sonorousness was developed in a conversational way with Melbourne-based pianist Kane Chang to capture the fragility of experience with the richness of sonorous piano textures. It is both pure sound-lingering moment and explosive virtuosic piano textures-and philosophical, drawing on contemporary Chinese architects Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri's ideas of memory and surprise. The musical content came from our discussion; to resonate with Kane's love of Bach spirituality, Chopin longingness and ancient Chinese guzheng virtuosity, the music veers from lingering tones to massive sonority conglomerations through juxtapositions of inspirations from ancient Japanese Gagaku spectral chords, Korean "Gugakkyemyŏnjo" modal lyricism, the New York free-jazz of Matthew Shipp, and Chinese traditional guzheng-like virtuosity but with hints of European baroque and romantic lyricism of Bach and Chopin. The structure of the triptych is organic in its flow: its inner central room of slowness explores Gagaku-like spectral colours disrupted by New York-influenced free-jazz, psychologist Kylie Lapierre's conceptual ideas on stasis, and cheeky hints of Afro-Cuban salsasonclave, whilst the outer flanks' nothingness to movement have elements of surprising hints of son claveappear at the close, and the opening's lingering kyemyŏnjo-inspired melodic fragments push into the distilled inner room.

Work Details

Year: 2021

Instrumentation: Piano.

Duration: 8 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Written for: Kane Chang

Commission note: Commissioned by Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), The ANAM Set with funds provided by Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund.

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc in relation to this work:
Contemporary Chinese architects Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri’s ideas of memory and surprise, Japanese Gagaku spectral chords, Korean Gugak kyemyŏnjo modal lyricism, the New York free-jazz of Matthew Shipp, psychologist Kylie Lapierre’s conceptual ideas on stasis, and Afro-Cuban salsa son clave, and Chinese traditional guzheng-like virtuosity but with hints of European baroque spirituality and romantic lyricism of Bach and Chopin.

Performances of this work

1 Nov 21: Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, VIC. Featuring Kane Chang.

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