Richard Vella
Richard Vella writes with a sharp ear for colour and drive. His guitar piece Mirrors of Fire rides a relentless walking bass; the clarinet Tango is flamboyant and free; Memory Pieces let the piano glance back at Czerny, mazurka and cinema.
Mirrors of Fire, written for Timothy Kain, never loses its focus: octatonic fragments grind under the surface while the guitar keeps moving. The Tango for clarinet and piano grew from shared improvisations and treats the clarinet as a showpiece of texture and swagger, full of glissandi and multiphonics. On the piano, the Memory Pieces cycle (1980-85) turns reminiscence into form, nodding to etudes, dance and the screen without settling into pastiche. A Prelude for solo guitar belongs to the same body of work that players take up for its bite and theatrical flair.
Compositions by Richard Vella appear on
A Sympathetic Resonance
Peter Constant presents classical guitar works by Australian composers, joined by Marion Schaap on guitar, Mardi McSullea on flute and Helen Noonan, soprano.