Sounds, and Sweet Airs

Davies, Tansy

Sample page

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Sample score

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Duration

15m 00s

Publisher

bmic New Voices

Composed

2001

Instrumentation

Voices and Instruments

Scoring

sop, alt, ten, bas, woodwind, brass, strings, guitars, perc, pf

Availability

Contact CoMA

About the work

I took the text for this cantata from Caliban’s famous evocation of the strange music of the island in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It is constructed as a series of interlocking verses and refrains. The refrains are rhythmical and repetitive, the verses explore the atmospheres and colours of the text. In a way it is a memorial to the great Greek composer Xenakis who has also set this text and who died in 2000.

First Performance: 27 July 2001, Bretton Hall, Yorkshire

Technical notes

Choir also required to play at least 6 ocarinas, 6 bottles, 6 swanee whistles and as many bunches of keys as possible.

Origin

COMA commission 2001