CSM 21: 'Sitsky at Sixty' by Hill, Jezek, Hunt, Lyndon Gee, Noble, Plunkett, Petra String Quartet
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Browsing CSM 21: 'Sitsky at Sixty' by Hill, Jezek, Hunt, Lyndon Gee, Noble, Plunkett, Petra String Quartet by Author "Composer: Larry Sitsky"
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Item Open Access Dagh for solo trumpet(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University) Composer: Larry Sitsky; Sitsky, Larry; Grafton-Greene, Michael"Sitsky writes: After two visits to Russia, which included Armenia, sometime in the late seventies, I fell under the sway of Armenian music, with its fascinating cross between Byzantine and Indian musics. The melodies of Armenian sacred and profane music are melismatic, elaborate, highly expressive; the rhythms often asymmetric and changeable. All this suited my personal rhapsodic style, and in 1984, during a year devoted to composition [while on a full-time Australia Council Composer Fellowship], I produced a large number of pieces for solo wind, all inspired by Armenia. Dagh, which is an Armenian word meaning 'hymn', was written for the trumpeter Paul Plunkett, then a Lecturer in the Brass Department at the Canberra School of Music. It is in four movements: 1. Andante con moto; 2. Con moto spirito, dance-like; 3. Allegretto; 4. Rhapsodically, with virtuosity. This recording was made some ten years ago. In the intervening period, the original digital session tape has suffered from ageing." -- Peter CampbellItem Open Access Fantasia No 10 for double keyboard piano(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University) Composer: Larry Sitsky; Sitsky, Larry; Grafton-Greene, Michael"A Bechstein-Moor double-keyboard (Duplex-Coupler) grand piano was brought to Australia by Winifred Burston in the 1930s. The 1921 invention by Emanuel Moor of a piano with a second keyboard sounding an octave higher, is a fascinating story, as is Burston's championing of the instrument. The Fantasia was composed in response to a request from pianist Alistair Noble for a concert-piece to mark Alan Jenkins' retirement from the Canberra School of Music in 1992. Jenkins and Sitsky were both pupils of Burston; Noble was not only a student of Alan Jenkins, but had also rescued the piano - believed to be the only example in Australia - from use in pianotuning practice. Like Sitskys other Fantasias, the work is conceived in a free-flowing, quasi improvisational style which exploits the particular features of the double-keyboard instrument. It is not possible to play the piece on a coventional piano." -- Peter CampbellItem Open Access String Quartet No 2(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University) Composer: Larry Sitsky; Sitsky, Larry; Grafton-Greene, Michael"The second string quartet is subtitled 'Thirteen Concert Studies', which indicates the structure and progression of the work: 1. Unisons/Octaves (allegro ritmico) 3. Harmonics (slow) 5. Pizzicato (allegro amiabile) 7. Col Legno (allegrissimo) 9. Trills/Tremolos (moderato) 11. Bowings (andante con moto) 13. Collage (allegro) No matter how interesting a 'succession of unrelated coloristic essays' might be in itself, Sitskys compositional style demands a device which links and unifies the various studies. Study No. 1 (Unisons/Octaves) provides the thematic/melodic material from which the movements that follow are derived, while the harmonic elements used throughout the work spring ultimately from the second study (Chords). The final movement, 'Collage', which quotes directly from the first study, acts as a suedo-recapitulation. The String Quartet No.2 won the 1981 Spivakovsky Prize for Composition, and was premiered at the 1984 Adelaide Festival of the Arts, along with the second string quartet of Richard Meale." -- Peter CampbellItem Open Access The Secret Gates of the House of Osiris(Canberra School of Music, Australian National University) Composer: Larry Sitsky; Sitsky, Larry; Grafton-Greene, Michael"Part of the Egyptian Book of the Dead depicts the journey of the Sun (Ra). After it sets, the Sun traverses twelve kingdoms of the underground before rising again; the journey is thus a gradual progression towards light. The work was completed in December 1986, and dedicated to the cellist Christian Wojtowicz who played in the first performance in Hobart a year later. The formal structure of Secret Gates consciously echoes Sitsky's earlier work for solo piano, Twelve Mystical Preludes after the Nuctemeron of Appollonius ofTyana, in which twelve short pieces are linked strongly by their thematic material into a cycle. Secret Gates, scored for the somewhat unusual combination of flute, viola, cello and piano, uses the same procedure. The twelve movements are: 1. Hymn to Osiris 2. The Boat of Af Ra 3. The House of Tet 4. The Realm of Seker 5. The Shrine of Seker 6. The Four Sons of Horus, the Four Forms of Osiris and the Nine Serpents 7. The Secret Road of Ament 8. The Gods of the Circles 9. The Serpent Mehen 10. The Mystic Sceptre 11. The Eternal Set 12. The Celestial Waters" -- Peter Campbell