|
stirrings (2001) |
For mixed ensemble - c. 5'
stirrings, dedicated to Konrad Boehmer on his 60 th birthday, was commissioned by Cikada as part of DARK MATTER, an evening-length performance for 18 performers, electronics and installations (in collaboration with the ELISION Ensemble and the artist Per Inge Bjørlo), and completed in May 2001.
The composition takes the form of six brief and highly compressed movements, which could be likened to six views of the same room, each of which contains different objects, and is lit from different angles; not a set of variations but of rearrangements. At the same time they relate more distantly to the abstract dance-suites of baroque music, abstracted almost but not quite out of existence. The score concludes with some words from Beckett’s Stirrings Still: "Such and much more such the hubbub in his mind so-called till nothing left from deep within but only ever fainter oh to end. No matter how no matter where. Time and grief and self so-called. Oh all to end".
© Richard Barrett