Work Overview
This work was composed to embody my evolving work in stylistic
synthesis in composition. Its genesis is from the Persian dastgah
practice of 'shur' (shoor), perhaps the most characteristic mode
of Persian classical music.
My intention was not to write a Persian traditional composition
but to explore some possibilities inherent in the styles and
genres I chose to bring together, allowing recognisability to
play a role with both performer and listener. This includes
similarities and contrasts found in traditional and radical
representations or approximations of the music I incorporate or
borrow for new work. Here, I combine my own improvisatory style
with concepts fundamental to Persian solo performance practice
which include the mode and the sections named for the traditional
gusheh (melody type) that epitomise this music. My gusheh-ha are
not traditional but original.
Amongst these expressions of various culturally styled musics, is
the background of things like contemporary art music practices,
guitar techniques, the solo suites of Bach and modern jazz. My
improvisational modus operandus is drawn upon in composition
because its flight of fancy allows imagination to dominate
process. Ideas flow which can always be modified later, but every
composition of mine will have this spontaneous feel.
The creative impetus to discover new musical correlations allows
me to choose things from the existing musical world and impose
relationships on them in an unfolding context so that new worlds
of musical meaning may be born. This is not cross-over music. It
is more like collage where an idea may dominate a work but where
it is more likely that there will be smatterings of musical
representations placed here or there. Style and genre will be
heard in layers or beside each other, or they may be blended so
that something new is perceived.
The nature of Persian music is poetic and reflective and seldom
dramatic. The experienced master melodicizes using a handful of
notes creating an evocative and moving tapestry. This is indeed a
part of this work though the dramatic and exhuberant exist in the
contrast of genre.
Work Details
Year: 2009
Instrumentation: Classical guitar with altered tuning (C G D Bb C Eb)
Duration: 8 min.
Difficulty: Advanced — Use of bent quarter tones and unusual tessitura
First performance: 23 Mar 09. Ian Hanger Recital Hall, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Brisbane
Subjects
- Influenced by: Persian culture
- Influenced by: Blues
Performances of this work
23 Mar 09: Ian Hanger Recital Hall, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Brisbane
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