Luke Bedford
5 Abstracts
Short instrumentation: 1 1 1 1 - 1 1 1 0 - perc, hp, vln(2), vla, vc, cb
Duration: 18'
Instrumentation details:
flute (+picc)
oboe
clarinet in A
bassoon (+cbsn)
horn in F
trumpet in Bb
trombone
percussion
harp
1st violin
2nd violin
viola
violoncello
contrabass
Bedford - 5 Abstracts for 14 players
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Luke Bedford
Bedford: 5 AbstractsOrchestration: für 14 Spieler
Type: Studienpartitur (Sonderanfertigung)
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Work introduction
In this set of pieces I wanted to set up a different compositional game for each movement that might lead the music down unexpected avenues. By imposing these sometimes abstract ideas I found myself writing music that I could not have written in any other way.
In the first piece every member of the ensemble has just one pitch, and so the result is akin to an object being constantly seen and re-seen from different angles.
The second piece consists of a monody that builds up to a sustained climax.
The third is built of three floating rhythmic levels at a very slow tempo.
The fourth, which is the longest piece, is based largely on seven bars of music which are constantly repeated, but with various different harmonic and/or rhythmic filters constantly changing the perspective of the music. This builds up to what is the climax of the whole set up of pieces, as new material breaks into the old.
The final movement opens with a long melody, which then mutates into a chorale built from the same material.
Luke Bedford