Carl Vine: Miniature IV (1988)

Abstract

"Carl Vine's (b. 1954) Miniature IV was commissioned by the Australia Ensemble resident at The University of New South Wales and completed on 2 May 1988. The Ensemble performed it for the first time on 7 May as part of its tour of Australian capital cities for Musica Viva. The work's European premiere took place at the Ensemble's Wigmore Hall recital in London later that month with the composer present. The Ensemble's invitation to Carl Vine to write the piece was made possible by a commissioning scheme strongly supported by the Performing Arts Board, Australia Council. Vine is something of a prodigy among Australian composers. He writes with exceptional resourcefulness and assurance and gives the impression of having unlimited technique for whatever purpose he has in mind. He is also a gifted pianist and has been a consistent and dedicated performer of Australian contemporary music. He was born in Perth in 1954, began learning to play the cornet at the age of four and a half and laterstudied trumpet and piano. His interest in the trumpet waned when he was fifteen, and he began to devote himself to composing. After starting university studies in physics, his overriding interest in composition led him to a variety of amateur and semi-professional engagements with local theatre companies and an extended collaboration with the West Australian Ballet Company. In 1975 he was involved in the Australia Council's training scheme for young composers which, among other things, took him to Melbourne and Adelaide and convinced him that he should try to make composition a career. He found work in Sydney as rehearsal pianist for the Sydney Dance Company. In 1976 he was sponsored by the Australia Council in attending the Gulbenkian summer school in choreography in England. He has continued to work with great skill in writing for dancers. One of his earliest major successes was the score of the ballet Poppy, created around the life and times of Jean Cocteau. The composer writes: Miniature IV is a single-movement work in three sections. The first grows from the scalar movement at the opening, progressing freely through a series of continuous variations. This leads directly to the central section, which is marked by an argumentative duet between flute and clarinet. This settles, in turn, into a meditative clarinet solo commented upon by flute intrusions. A faster duet leads to the moto perpetuot\na\e. Throughout the work, the ensemble is divided into three groups: the violin, viola and cello form a ripieno accompanying trio; the piano, occasionally soloistic, most frequently functions in an accompanying or 'commenting' fashion; while, the top of the ensemble, flute and clarinet either alternate or function jointly as a solo unit. The piece is based quite conspicuously, therefore, on the middle-to-late baroque concerto model. [CV] Miniature IVis typical of its composer in its generally agreeable and carefully calculated texture, coolly lyrical shapeliness, masterly interplay of metre and accent, and in its passages of brilliant, driving liveliness." -- Roger Coveil