Pentimenti (2012)
for solo cello and imagined accompaniment
Dedicated to Christine Lucia
Commissioned by Domus for Friedrich Gauwerky
Publisher: Bardic Edition
Available from Goodmusic Publishing
Score BDE 1150 published with 'the richter scale' as 'Two Cello Pieces'
Duration: c. 14 minutes, 15 seconds
Recording
Recorded by Friedrich Gauwerky on 'Michael Blake - The Philosophy of Composition' Wergo WER 7361 2
Première
First performance: Sunday 24 February 2013; Nirox Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa; Friedrich Gauwerky cello.
Further performances: 27.02.2013; STIAS Library, Stellenbosch, South Africa; Friedrich Gauwerky cello 18.01.2014; Kunstsalon-Gelbevilla, Hürth, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello (European premiere) 20.07.2014; Pianomuseum Haus Eller, Köln, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello 13.09.2014; Haus Bertelsmann, Worpswede, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello 18.12.2016; Kunstsalon-Gelbevilla, Hürth, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello
Programme note
Pentimenti began as a concertante work for cello and small ensemble for Friedrich Gauwerky to play at the dance-themed Johannesburg Mozart Festival in February 2013. When the festival director got cold feet, the work morphed into a piece for solo cello and imagined accompaniment, with some of the pentimenti (visible traces of earlier painting beneath the paint on the canvass, as often found in Matisse for example) of the original accompaniment still evident in the score. Pentimenti marks the centenary of the riotous premiere in Paris, on 29 May 1913, of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. In the spirit of Sacre I wanted to compose a real dance for the cello (not just a stylised dance movement or suite - music history is crammed full of those), in which “figures” - chords (including the final cello chord in Sacre) and melodic fragments - are choreographed into continually changing patterns on the musical plane (“the stage”). The constant alternation between arco and pizzicato - from the opening chords, through the allusion to Stravinsky’s pounding Sacrificial Dance, to the final “duet” - makes enormous demands on the player, but writing for Gauwerky meant that no challenge was impossible. Pentimenti was a birthday present for my wife Christine Lucia, and Friedrich Gauwerky gave the work its premiere at the Nirox Foundation, Sterkfontein, South Africa on 24 February 2013.
for solo cello and imagined accompaniment
Dedicated to Christine Lucia
Commissioned by Domus for Friedrich Gauwerky
Publisher: Bardic Edition
Available from Goodmusic Publishing
Score BDE 1150 published with 'the richter scale' as 'Two Cello Pieces'
Duration: c. 14 minutes, 15 seconds
Recording
Recorded by Friedrich Gauwerky on 'Michael Blake - The Philosophy of Composition' Wergo WER 7361 2
Première
First performance: Sunday 24 February 2013; Nirox Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa; Friedrich Gauwerky cello.
Further performances: 27.02.2013; STIAS Library, Stellenbosch, South Africa; Friedrich Gauwerky cello 18.01.2014; Kunstsalon-Gelbevilla, Hürth, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello (European premiere) 20.07.2014; Pianomuseum Haus Eller, Köln, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello 13.09.2014; Haus Bertelsmann, Worpswede, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello 18.12.2016; Kunstsalon-Gelbevilla, Hürth, Germany; Friedrich Gauwerky cello
Programme note
Pentimenti began as a concertante work for cello and small ensemble for Friedrich Gauwerky to play at the dance-themed Johannesburg Mozart Festival in February 2013. When the festival director got cold feet, the work morphed into a piece for solo cello and imagined accompaniment, with some of the pentimenti (visible traces of earlier painting beneath the paint on the canvass, as often found in Matisse for example) of the original accompaniment still evident in the score. Pentimenti marks the centenary of the riotous premiere in Paris, on 29 May 1913, of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. In the spirit of Sacre I wanted to compose a real dance for the cello (not just a stylised dance movement or suite - music history is crammed full of those), in which “figures” - chords (including the final cello chord in Sacre) and melodic fragments - are choreographed into continually changing patterns on the musical plane (“the stage”). The constant alternation between arco and pizzicato - from the opening chords, through the allusion to Stravinsky’s pounding Sacrificial Dance, to the final “duet” - makes enormous demands on the player, but writing for Gauwerky meant that no challenge was impossible. Pentimenti was a birthday present for my wife Christine Lucia, and Friedrich Gauwerky gave the work its premiere at the Nirox Foundation, Sterkfontein, South Africa on 24 February 2013.
