Composer: Larry SitskyCollins, GeoffreyVivian, AlanBollard, DavidOlding, DavidMorozova, IrinaSmiles, Julian2024-08-192024-08-19https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733714901"Gordon Kerry (b. 1961) is a Melbourne-born and trained composer who has been making a steadily growing reputation for himself from a Sydney base in the last few years. His Sonata da Camera was commissioned forthe Australia Ensemble by Musica Viva Australia with financial assistance from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council. Kerry has proved his worth during his periods of residence with several musical organisations in Australia and abroad. In 1990 he wrote a song cycle and this Sonata da Camera before becoming, later in the same year, composer-in-residence with Musica Viva's Educational Performance Project. He has made determined and substantial forays into choral, operatic, orchestral and chamber genres. His chamber opera, Medea, had its first Melbourne and Sydney performances in 1993. It had subsequent seasons in Washington, Canberra and Berlin. Gordon Kerry writes: As its title implies, Sonata da Camera has no extramusical associations. Having written mainly choral and vocal music in the previous year, I took the opportunity to explore some purely abstract concerns. For instance, it seemed appropriate in writing for an ensemble whose repertoire is as catholic as is the Australia Ensemble's, to produce a work which engaged with some aspects of that repertoire; it seemed no less appropriate to conceive of a work in which the unusual instrumentation of the Ensemble and the virtuosity of all its members might be explored. The piece is in two movements, played without a break. The first, fast movement has a kind of sonata design. Its first subject consists of two elements: a rhythmically unsettled chromatic motive played by the strings which is complemented by a more diatonic falling figure in the winds. The tonal focus of the first subject is G minor, the key of some of my favourite chamber music (Mozart, Brahms and Shostakovich come to mind). The second subject contrasts in several ways: its tempo is slightly slower, its rhythm regular, its melodies more modal, and its tonal focus is on Band G sharp (forthat Schubertian effect). These elements are developed in a section of contrasting moods and tonalities, and there is a recapitulation of classical proportions. The second movement is much looser in design, and much slower in tempo. After a short transition the piano introduces the remote tonality of C sharp, from which the music explores some of the available duo and trio possibilities. Tempo modulations lead to a brief reminiscence of the first movement. The final section is a homage to the sort of contrapuntal music beloved of the Tallis Scholars, the function of which is to purge the music gradually of any dissonance and return it to a serene G major/minor. [GK] To the composer's description of the first movement it may be helpful to add that the persistent chromatic figure forthe strings in the first movement is usually tightly constricted in range and that the flute and clarinet seem to be soaring and dipping in free space by contrast. Gruff articulation of the first movement's scrubbing figure helps to animate the opening movement. The composer points out that the metronome markings in the score determine the ratio between the tempos of its sections and must be strictly observed. The score was dedicated to the late Phillip Henry, then artistic director of Musica Viva Australia." -- Roger Coveilaudio/wav© 1996 Anthology of Australian Music on DiscClassical Music1991