Score
Birds calling on Waterfall Way : for piano / Michael Hannan.
Library shelf no. 786.2/HAN 40 [Not for loan]
Work Overview
Written while living for four months in Bellingen, a small town
400 km north of Sydney, this work is part of a series that uses
the melodies of bird calls heard in situ. The title refers to the
picturesque main road that runs from Raleigh (on the Pacific
Highway) through Bellingen, Dorrigo and Ebor, to Armidale.
On Waterfall Way I experienced many birds including yellow-tailed
black cockatoos, galahs, whistling kites, various parrots, fig
birds, various honeyeaters, little wattle birds, magpies and
willy wagtails. But it was the pied butcherbird and magpie lark
(peewee) calls that captured my attention and inspired this
work.
Birds Calling on Waterfall Way is in three main
sections. The first and last employ the haunting melodies of the
pied butcherbird, a bird that has found its way into many of my
piano works beginning with Resonances I (1987). The
middle section explores the rhythmic variety of the calls of the
magpie lark.
Typically this species constructs endless variations from three
or four adjacent notes. As in many of my piano works, I give the
instruction "sempre pedale", to enable maximum resonance from the
instrument.
Work Details
Year: 2015
Instrumentation: Piano.
Dedication note: Dedicated to Gael and Pat Gray
Subjects
- Inspired by: Birdsong
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