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Disparate Dances (2002) |
Flute and Harp Concerto with Chamber Orchestra - c.16'
Western composers have been fascinated by folk music for centuries. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Liszt, Elgar, Stravinsky, Ives all wrote works involving folk tunes and country dances. My own interest in folk music goes back to my university days in the 1960s and 70s, but more recently to my wife's interest and growing involvement in folk fiddling in England. Disparate Dances is a three-movement work for chamber orchestra with flute and harp soloists. Its inspiration comes from three very different, disparate, world folk traditions: Eastern European, Japanese and Irish/American. The first movement, Carpathia , uses rhythms and scales which allude to Eastern Europe but are actually not genuine folk materiall. The idea is to conjure up an imaginary landscape somewhere undefined in the Carpathian Mountains. The second movement moves further east. A buyo is a kind of slow Japanese dance but this movement, like the first, is again allusion not authentic. The alto flute plays with breathy, bending tones in the style of a Japanese shakuhatchi-bamboo flute. The harp plucks the strings near the soundboard to create an allusion to another Japanese instrument, the koto. Hornpipe and Gig completes the sonic tour but this time with a genuine folk tune, an 18 th century Irish folk tune, The Rights of Man . The title of the tune was taken from the famous pamphlet by the English revolutionary, Thomas Paine, who played an important role not only in the American Revolution but also the Irish cause against the English. The flute, tin whistle and harp, icons of Irish music, begin the movement with a traditional rendition of the tune but soon move out of the pub and into the concert hall for a frenetic, symphonic finale.
Notes © Stephen Montague