2000
12'
vn/pf
1st perf:
Fenella Barton, violin
Simone Dinnerstein, piano
Purcell Room, 2 November 2000
Further performance at St James’s Piccadilly
Recorded on NMC D130
Composers Edition
Programme note:
Many of my chamber pieces, for whatever combination, are in the nature of tone poems or even symphonic poems, whereby the material, though never the structure, is coloured by a poetic idea or atmosphere. 'of Knots and Skeins' is different, and belongs to the classical tradition of purely musical discourse. It opens with a tangle of ideas - one of the 'knots' of the title - which then unravels into more easily perceived cantabile lines - the 'skeins'. The piece then proceeds through a series of alternating knots and skeins of various kinds: at one stage, for instance, the piano's two hands and the violin give three parallel skeins interweaving at great speed, while elsewhere a single skein on the violin unwinds through the pianos 'knotty' chords - and so on.
Anthony Payne
12'
vn/pf
1st perf:
Fenella Barton, violin
Simone Dinnerstein, piano
Purcell Room, 2 November 2000
Further performance at St James’s Piccadilly
Recorded on NMC D130
Composers Edition
Programme note:
Many of my chamber pieces, for whatever combination, are in the nature of tone poems or even symphonic poems, whereby the material, though never the structure, is coloured by a poetic idea or atmosphere. 'of Knots and Skeins' is different, and belongs to the classical tradition of purely musical discourse. It opens with a tangle of ideas - one of the 'knots' of the title - which then unravels into more easily perceived cantabile lines - the 'skeins'. The piece then proceeds through a series of alternating knots and skeins of various kinds: at one stage, for instance, the piano's two hands and the violin give three parallel skeins interweaving at great speed, while elsewhere a single skein on the violin unwinds through the pianos 'knotty' chords - and so on.
Anthony Payne