When Robert Johnson and I began discussing the concerto again in late 2005 we talked about a piece that would present the horn as an instrument of many colours and that would juxtapose it against (within) many different orchestral textures.
Sitting in a Rozelle cafe on 11 May 2006 I mapped out a journey for the [...]
Listen to John Corigliano give an illuminating 60 minute talk on his method of composition at the Julliard School on 22 April 2009.
A pity this isn’t on YouTube but with a bit of imagination it is possible to visual his score examples.
If you have read the previous post you might have noticed the similarity in the titles of these octatonic pieces:
(You Dead Kings Rising)
Free Dance
Freefall
Nightfall
Lightfall
Freefall was so named because I imagined waking up suddenly to find myself falling…forever. It moves gradually from bright, shrieking panic to muted, numb resignation.
In the film, Mao’s [...]
Initial Octatonic Sketch. In November 2006 I wrote a sketch as a submission to a film I didn’t get. They always seem to want these submissions “yesterday” so, with only an afternoon available, I wrote and recorded it on synths in three or four hours, along with a couple of other pieces. It was very [...]
Each of the commonly used major and minor scales and their modal relatives is comprised of seven notes. An octatonic scale has, as its name suggests, eight notes. There are many possible eight note scales ( I read somewhere that there are 42) but there is one in particular that is most commonly used and [...]
In January 1998 I contacted Robert Johnson to see if he would like me to write him a horn concerto. It was really rather cheeky of me as I was entirely unknown in the concert world and virtually unknown in the film world.
I had made a bit of a name for myself in Sydney and [...]
