Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Although being a guitarist myself, Sinfonia concertante is one of few pieces I have written for guitar, and the only piece written for guitar and a large instrumental ensemble. One of the things I wanted to bring out of the instrument was its inherent facility to combine open strings with fingered pitches and depending on the position on the fret board, interesting chordal sonorities could be achieved. Although the guitar is used extensively throughout the piece, the instrumental focus continually shifts between various parts of the instrumentation. The concertante idea gives a more even distribution of 'solo' material so each instrument features prominently at one point or another. This creates distinct passages of textural variation, which most often coincide with shifts in thematic material. The overall effect is of continual, sometimes sudden, changes of instrumental colour and thematic material.