1: Prologue|Movement|Coda ……. 2: Prologue|Movement|Coda
Two paintings, side by side. One cold, static and morbid, the other warm, fluid and alive. Both are supported by left and right panels.
As music we must take in the images from left to right and so move from darkness to light, from contained rage and depression to an outburst of [...]
The full score of Lightfall for Horn and Orchestra is available here in pdf:
Lightfall-Full-Score-1g
The score is formatted for A4 paper.
For A3 paper, print at 141%.
It was the 29th of March 2009 and I was driving back down the F3 yet again. For the first time in months I was excited; there was purpose to my travel, I knew not only where I was going but why.
The previous night, as I was heading to bed, I had thought of an [...]
The central reason for writing this blog at hornconcerto.net is to give an idea of the life of a composer during the composition of a major work. Now if the gestation of Lightfall had gone smoothly, as it so often does, then perhaps there would have been very little to write about; certainly we could [...]
When I returned to the composition of Lightfall in mid-December 2008 I had a clear few months ahead of me. Apart from a couple of predicted minor interruptions there would be nothing to distract my focus. I was behind on the delivery date but I just needed to hide from the world for a while [...]
The ‘useful passages’ I referred to in the last post took the form of three basic sketches. Unfortunately they are not dated but I do know that were composed in January 2009 in the order presented below.
Sketch 1 (1a,1b,1c)
Composed on a day where I was back on the original octatonic scale. I was aware that [...]
Well, now this blog has caught up with itself.
In mid-December Mao’s Last Dancer was finished and I was free to concentrate wholly on Lightfall. I gathered together all the ideas and materials created to date and was faced with the reality that I was completely at sea.
Normally I have an idea, then write the piece, [...]
As well as being standard concerts the Meet the Music series of concerts is part of the Sydney Symphony’s education program. An education kit is created providing analysis and historical background on all the music to be performed in the year. In turn these pieces become part of the New South Wales secondary schools music [...]
Of course, I didn’t spend those ten or so weeks in the middle of 2008 just making charts and diagrams.
In between attending the Mao’s Last Dancer editing suite and thinking about that score I also began composing the concerto.
The horn is basically a very long metal tube wound up on itself for convenience. Before the invention of valves the only way to produce different notes was by changing the pressure of the lips, the embouchure.
Here is the rubber hose version:
