Bozidar Kos: Catena 2 (1992)

Abstract

"Bozidar Kos (b. 1934) is a widely esteemed Australian composer who was born in May, 1934, in Novo Mesto in what was formerly Yugoslavia. He is at present lecturer in composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (formerly NSW State Conservatorium). Catena 2 was commissioned from him by the Australia Ensemble resident at the University of New South Wales, with financial assistance from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council. Bozidar Kos began studying music at the age of six and later pursued intensive studies in cello and piano at the state school of music in Novo Mesto. After finishing high school he enrolled in the faculty of technology at the University of Ljubljana. At the same time he was appointed a teacher of cello and music theory at the state school of music and as a cellist in the local orchestra. He became actively interested in jazz, formed and led an eighteenpiece jazz orchestra and toured western European countries between 1959 and 1964 withasmalljazzgroup. He migrated to Australia in 1965 (becoming an Australian citizen in 1974) and in 1971 enrolled in music at the University of Adelaide, starting to compose seriously while taking composition as a principal study in his BMus course. Bozidar Kos has earned a number of important prizes and grants for composition and has had his instrumental music commissioned and performed by leading ensembles here and overseas, including Synergy, The Seymour Group, Flederman and the Australian Contemporary Music Ensemble. Flederman played his Three Movements for flute, trombone, piano and percussion extensively during its 1983 tour of the United States. His scores, noted for their fine and careful workmanship, have been recorded and broadcast many times in Australia and on British, German and former Yugoslavian radio. The composer writes: Catena 2 is the second of two compositions in which the word catena [meaning chain, succession or series] refers to a particular form of the work. It consists of closely connected series of segments that often unite through some common musical idea into larger sections. There are altogether twenty-one such segments, of which four are further subdivided into two parts each. The segments are differentiated from one another by instrumentation and by musical content. Every segment is played by a different instrumental combination, except for segments eight and sixteen, which employ all six members of the ensemble and correspond to the two climaxes of the work. Twelve other segments are trios, one is quartet, and six are quintets. Each segment is distinguished by a specific musical idea or a set of ideas that is repeated many times within the segment and develops at the same time. Some instruments that continue to play from one segment to the next also continue to develop musical ideas played by them in a previous segment (or segments), while the other instruments introduce new ideas. In this way a number of segments form what can be perceived as larger sections. At the same time these sections may overlap as well. Segments thus represent individual links in a series of musical events, but at the same time they are related to one another through some material held in common. Developmental processes in the material are able to continue in this way from segment to segment or section to section. The last four segments recapitulate - though in varied form - the material of the first few segments. Durations of individual segments are in the proportions 2:3, 3:5, 5:8 etc to each other. These are the proportions of the Fibonacci numerical series. This series also controls a large part of the rhythmic organisation of the central segment of the work, together with other asymmetrical and additive rhythmic structures, characteristic of many of my other compositions. [BK] The general character of the music is nervous, precise and fine in texture, sometimes combining long lines of melody with an aviary of detached, birdsong-like comments and reactions." -- Roger Coveil Show more