Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

These etudes were written in 2024-2025 during a period of severe illness, mostly inspired by art works experienced first hand over two decades travelling through Europe, with a nod to Warren Burt's "20 Dissonant Etudes". They include works from exhibitions dedicated to Van Gogh and Munch, as well as the 2015 Venice Biennale. All the artists stand out as dissidents (or, dissentients) refusing to conform to prevailing cultural and political hierarchies of their times. The one etude not based on an artwork, number 21, is based instead on a photo of crumbling brickwork in the Venice Castello, along with a concept by Koestler, 'receuler pour mieux sauter', roughly translated meaning to step back in order to leap forward, an idea exemplified by the respect most visionary and revolutionary artists have paid to their disintegrating cultural heritage.

These etudes are little essays on my thoughts on piano technique over a lifetime spent as a "dissident" pianist, by taking up a particular technical challenge suggested by each artwork. They are also ruminations on the interpretation of art through human eyes at the dawn of the emergence of a new technology, AGI. Unlike visual art, which can be taken in by the eyes as a whole, or sculpture, which exists as a whole in three-dimensional space, music is limited by the arrow of time, so these pieces are obviously not intended as literal transcriptions but are, rather, more akin to brief mood pieces.

They are dedicated to my wife, Arabella.

Contents:

i. Dissentient Etude #1: after Umberto Boccioni's 'The Rising City' (1910)

ii. Dissentient Etude #2: after Edvard Munch's 'The Kiss' (1897)

iii. Dissentient Etude #3: after Vincent Van Gogh's 'Van Gogh's Chair' (1888)

iv. Dissentient Etude #4: after Joan Mitchell's 'Minnesota' (1980)

v. Dissentient Etude #5: after Chiharu Shiota's 'The Key In The Hand' (2015)

vi. Dissentient Etude #6: after Helen Frankenthaler's 'Movable Blue' (1973)

vii. Dissentient Etude #7: after Edvard Munch's 'Attraction II' (1896)

viii. Dissentient Etude #8: after Pablo Picasso's 'Head of a Bull' (1942)

ix. Dissentient Etude #9: after Lee Krasner's 'Gothic Landscape' (1961)

x. Dissentient Etude #10: after Niki de Saint Phalle's 'Tirage' (Shooting Picture) (1961)

xi. Dissentient Etude #11: after Vincent Van Gogh's 'The Sower' (1888)

xii. Dissentient Etude #12: after Georg Baselitz's 'Not Falling Off The Wall' (2014)

xiii. Dissentient Etude #13: after Edvard Munch's 'Waves' (1908)

xiv. Dissentient Etude #14: after Vincent Van Gogh's 'Wheat Field With Cypresses' (1889)

xv. Dissentient Etude #15: after Vincent Van Gogh's 'Starry Night Over The Rhône' (1888)

xvi. Dissentient Etude #16: after Edvard Munch's 'Starry Night' (1922-24)

xvii. Dissentient Etude #17: after Vincent Van Gogh's 'Bedroom In Arles' (1888)

xviii. Dissentient Etude #18: after Vincent Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' (1888)

xix. Dissentient Etude #19: after Gerhard Richter's 'Cage (1)-(6)' (2006)

xx. Dissentient Etude #20: after Adrian Ghenie's 'The Storm' (2015)

xxi. Dissentient Etude #21: photo of the ruined wall of the Venice Castello (2015)

xxii. Dissentient Etude #22: after Edvard Munch's 'Woman By The Verandah Step' (1942)

xxiii. Dissentient Etude #23: after Edvard Munch's 'Despair' (1893-4)

xxiv. Dissentient Etude #24: after Constant's 'After Us, Liberty' (1949)

Work Details

Year: 2025

Instrumentation: Piano.

Duration: 80 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — High virtuosity required as well as understanding of extended techniques