Listen & tracks
4 of 7 tracks have a preview · 7 works · 78:35
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1 Dancing to the Tremors of Time (2017) Brendan Colbert 28:47
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2 Piano Sonata No. 4 (2017) Scott McIntyre 15:31
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3 Piano Sonata No. 9 (2018) Don Kay 14:54
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4 D E G (2019) Elliott Gyger 5:27
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5 Rabbit Song (2019) Elizabeth Drake 4:26
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6 Vanishing Point (2019) Martin Friedel 3:54
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7 Prelude and Fugue for solo piano (2018) Brendan Collins 5:36
The binding element in all the music on this disc is the concept of surrealism as music. Music is notoriously difficult to pin down in a representational way, but, happily, so is surrealism: it is more a philosophical strategy than an art movement.
The title work, Dancing to the Tremors of Time, takes its name from an Australian painting by James Gleeson given this surrealist categorisation. Colbert creates a metaphorical sonic universe of the image by equating non-sequitur melodic fragments to the disturbingly truncated and deformed figurations of Gleeson’s painting.
Following on from this, the sonatas by McIntyre and Kay, though entirely different in language, rebel against the establishment in a surrealist spirit by taking opposite stances: one anti-programmatic, and one strenuously representational.
Gyger achieves a quiet grandeur in his use of interwoven minimal cyphers, not unlike the delicate linear narratives of Kandinsky, while Drake and Friedel evoke familiar worlds of sorrow and abandonment similar to those of Hopper’s diner paintings and Vasarely’s explosive op-art.
Collins, with his stylised jazz idiom, completes the rebellion by fully notating an improvised art into that most archaic and dry musical form, the prelude and fugue, achieving a witty fluidity despite his restrictions, reminiscent of Dalí’s vagina piano paintings.
Reviews
Michael Kieran Harvey is renowned for his formidable technique and championing of contemporary compositions that explore the piano's sonic possibilities. An exciting snapshot of current Australian piano music performed with consummate authority. ★★★★
In a scintillating display of virtuosic pianism, Michael Kieran Harvey introduces seven engaging new Australian works for solo piano. The one-take nature of (these) live recordings amplifies Harvey’s artistic achievement on this release.
Artists
Michael Kieran Harvey
piano
Australian pianist and composer Dr Michael Kieran Harvey FAHA is among the foremost interpreters of contemporary piano music of his generation. A champion of Australian music, he regularly commissions new work and has performed with the country’s leading contemporary ensembles and orchestras.
Brendan Colbert
composer
Brendan Colbert was born in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1956. After moving to Melbourne in the 1970s he worked with progressive-rock bands as keyboard player and songwriter, and in the 1980s studied composition with Brenton Broadstock and Riccardo Formosa.
Elizabeth Drake
composer
Elizabeth Drake is a composer and sound artist for theatre, film, dance and radio. Her latest work is the award-winning soundtrack to the film Japanese Story.
Martin Friedel
composer
Martin Friedel (1945–2022) was an Australian composer whose work ranged from chamber opera and cantata to film and television. A trained scientist, he often drew themes from physics and natural philosophy into his music.
Elliott Gyger
composer
Elliott Gyger was born in Sydney, and has been writing music since about the age of ten. His compositional and research interests include the creation of a purely musical sense of drama and narrative, and the multilayered interplay of music and text.
Don Kay
composer
Don Kay (born 1933) is a Tasmanian classical composer whose work ranges from symphony, opera and concerto to chamber, choral, vocal and piano music, often shaped by the island’s landscape, ecology and history.
Brendan Collins
composer
Australian composer Brendan Collins grew up in the city of Newcastle. He studied trombone and composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Ron Prussing, Arthur Hubbard and George Golla, whose teaching he found invaluable. In 1984 he won a scholarship to study in Los Angeles with Ralph Sauer, principal trombone of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Scott McIntyre
composer
Dr Scott McIntyre studied French Horn at the Victorian College of the Arts in orchestral performance and composition from 1988-90, before continuing studies with Brenton Broadstock and graduating with a Bachelor of Music in music composition from the University of Melbourne in 1993.
Digital booklet
Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDFPerformers
- Michael Kieran Harvey · piano
Details
- List price
- $25.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 78 minutes 35 seconds
- Release date
- Sep 2019
- Categories
- Australian, Classical
- Musical work copyright
- © 2019 Move Records
- Sound recording copyright
- ℗ 2019 Move Records
- Catalogue
- MD 3438
- EAN
- 9314574343823
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