Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

This work for solo violin and accordion was written in 2015 for violinist Tara Murphy who is a personal friend.

The work was premièred on the 21st August 2016 at Brown's Mart Theatre as part of the 2016 Darwin Festival by violinist Netanela Mizrahi, with the Cathy Applegate on keyboard playing a modified part.

The work was inspired by the following quote from the novel, Levels of Life by Julian Barnes:

In the late 1800s, "Sarah Bernhardt travelled with her artist-lover Georges Clairin and a professional aeronaut in an orange balloon called Doña Sol, after her current role at the Comédie-Française. At six thirty in the evening, an hour into their flight, the actress played mother, preparing tartines de foie gras. The aeronaut opened a bottle of champagne, firing the cork into the sky; Bernhardt drank from a silver goblet. Then they ate oranges and tossed the empty bottle into the Lake of Vincennes. In their sudden superiority, they cheerfully dropped ballast on to the groundlings below: a family of English tourists on the balcony of the Bastille Column; later, a wedding party enjoying a rural party."

Work Details

Year: 2015

Instrumentation: For solo violin and accordion. The accordion part can be adapted to electric keyboard as an alternative. The accordion part works best if there is a Musette sound available.

Duration: 5 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — Violin part has some high and fast passages

First performance: by Netanela Mizrahi, Cathy Applegate — 21 Aug 16. Brown's Mart Theatre as part of the Darwin Festival Ad Hoc Ensemble concert

The composer notes:
The work is programmatic, describing the balloon flight through over the French countryside. Tonal and strong melodic lines.