Graham Hair: Colours of Rain and Iron (1979)

Abstract

"This work is what might be called a chamber symphonic poem, a single movement fantasy piece related in some ways to a literary program. Colours of Rain and Iron is based on Salvatore Quasimodo 's poem of the same name. Unlike the nineteenth century symphonic poem, this one uses the chamber ensemble instead of the orchestra as medium and the lyric poem instead of the narrative as program. The music traces its relation to the program circuitously through the text instead of in sequential order. Several of my recent pieces have explored the notion of formal design premised upon maximally heterogeneous material, a notion encapsulated in such musics of the past as the gothic motet or the early baroque canzona. Stravinsky' Symphonies of Wind Instrumerets is perhaps it most notable twentieth century manifestation. Colours of Rain and Iron essays some extensions and elaborations of this kind of design, to create a labyrinthine form in which no single character, texture or tempo predominates, but in which many, contrasting ones are meshed together in interlocking block, sometimes set off against one another in stark juxtaposition or superposition. This diverse musical material has its origin in the sharply contrasting natures of the four instruments for which the keyboardist's part is scored: there are four basic repertoires of pitch and rhythmic configurations, which unfold at different rates and according to different principles. The trombone writing takes up this quadruple aspect of the material, adapting, concatenating and counterpointing. As material originating on one instrument is transferred to another, the growth of new qualities and shapes is triggered." -- Graham Hair