Contemporary Lunchtime ConcertArcomis Ensemble

Saturday 13 May - 1pm

Programme

Arvo Pärt Für Alina (1976)

Piano

Adrian Hull Artorius 7 (2017)

Violin and Tape

Igor Stravinsky Suite After Themes, Fragments and

Pieces by Giambattista Pergolesi (1925)

Violin and Piano

Max Charles Davies (composer)

Chris Nash (programmer)

Manhattan Circus (2017) WP

Piano and Manhattan Computer Software

Arvo Pärt Passacaglia (2003)

Violin and Piano

Rhys Watkins, Violin

Neil Georgeson, Piano

The Arcomis Ensemble

Arcomis promotes and enables the commissioning of new music in

three ways. First, the organisation offers a service through which

people can commission new music from one of the professional

composers with which Arcomis works, second, through hosting an

online collection of scores and third, by staging world-class

performances and international music festivals such as the Brass

Event in 2013.

The Arcomis Ensemble has developed from the London

Contemporary Music Group which was formed in 2004 and gave a

number of concerts in London, Cardiff and Oxford. The current

incarnation of the ensemble will play a part in forthcoming Arcomis

events and will be the main source for recording commissioning

projects undertaken by Arcomis.

Visit www.arcomis.com for further information.

Rhys Watkins, Violin

Born in Cardiff, Welsh violinist Rhys Watkins currently enjoys touring the world as a

member of the London Symphony Orchestra. After graduating from the Royal Academy

of Music in 2005, Rhys began his professional career as a member of the Artea string

quartet. In 2008, he joined the LSO and has had the privilege of playing under Sir Colin

Davis, Valery Gergiev and currently Sir Simon Rattle.

Rhys has performed as a soloist with the LSO on numerous occasions in the Barbican

Centre and LSO St. Luke's. He has also performed recitals on behalf of the orchestra

across the world including Japan, Korea, Europe and America. Rhys has been a finalist

and prize winner in several international competitions, including the Jeunesses

Musicales International Violin Competition (Belgrade) and the Paganini International

Violin Competition (Moscow). He currently plays on a violin by Lorenzo Storioni.

Neil Georgeson, Piano

Pianist, writer, composer and director Neil Georgeson enjoyed a prize-winning

academic career on scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with

Patsy Toh, Joanna Macgregor and Ian Fountain and where he wrote his acclaimed

masters dissertation, afterwards becoming a Fellow, working with composers on new

music. He now appears regularly and widely as a solo pianist and chamber musician,

appearing at venues such as the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Barbican.

Neil Georgeson is Artistic Director of the Ossian Ensemble, a new music ensemble who

specialise in multidisciplinary concerts and site-specific work, working with eminent

composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies and Thomas Ades, as well as emerging

composers. Neil is also a member of Piano Circus, the original six-piano group who

specialise in minimalist and post-minimalist music. Neil has written the libretti for three

operas, which have all been produced in London and is also an opera director.

Programme Notes

Arvo Pärt Für Alina (1976) for piano

Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) is one of those composers whose creative output has significantly changed the

way we understand the nature of music. Today, he is known for his unique tintinnabuli style, and

although his earlier modernist works are perhaps less known to wider audiences, his entire oeuvre

has shifted our perception of music. Regardless of nationality, cultural background or age, many

people have been touched and influenced by the timeless beauty and deep spiritual message of

Pärt’s music. His works are performed not only in concert halls, but over recent decades also in

film, dance and theatre performances and other multimedia texts.

Für Alina is the first piece that Pärt composed in his tintinnabuli style. The music itself looks breath-

takingly simple across its two pages, but its introspection and serenity presents a different kind of

difficulty for a performer in place of technical virtuosity. Indeed, the music is so free, that certain

parameters can vary from performance to performance. These include the overall length, as the

written music can be repeated many times. A performer may also choose to employ varying

amounts of rubato in phrases that are very closely related; looking, as it were, at the material from

several different angles and perspectives. This combined with the compositional and harmonic

symmetry of the work perhaps serves to encourage the listener into a reflective mental space.

Max Davies

Adrian Hull Artorius 7 (2017) for violin and tape

The piece reflects upon two distinct ideas of agitation and beauty expressed through lyricism. In

several clear sections that evolve using a pre-defined process of transformation both harmonically

and rhythmically the ‘tape’ element builds toward a resolution of sorts whilst the lyricism of the solo

violin works within its constraints to highlight beauty within dissonance.

The music is intentionally simple in its representation of two ideas (and their resolution) having

been composed for and dedicated to a 7-year old child - who had an active role in the production

of the pre-recorded part.

The tape part uses solely string sounds which are digitally morphed to provide a rhythmic and

pulsing sound world which is then framed within a continually shifting harmonic reverb that allows

an oscillation between several harmonic centres.

Perhaps we’re living in challenging times. A binary conflict between two forces. Playing with time.

Adrian Hull

Igor Stravinsky Suite After Themes, Fragments and Pieces by Giambattista Pergolesi (1925)

for violin and piano

1. Introductione

2. Serenata

3. Tarantella

4. Gavotta con due variazioni

5. Minuetto e finale

This is the first of two suites that adapts music from Stravinsky’s ballet Pulcinella for violin and

piano.

Much of Stravinsky’s music for this ensemble – with the notable exception of the Duo concertant

(1931-1932) – was arranged from his pre-existing works to form recital programmes with the violinist

Samuel Dushkin (for whom Stravinsky composed his Violin Concerto). Stravinsky both wanted more

concert engagements and had very little interest in standard duo repertoire, so this solution of adapting

existing music was entirely pragmatic. This fruitful collaboration with Dushkin produced a host of

transcribed works – all selected by Stravinsky to be tuneful and likeable – which would become the

touring ‘un joli Kammerabend’ – a pretty chamber-evening.

It’s important to note that this endeavor was no ‘mere arrangement.’ Stravinsky would effectively

completely reimagine the material to best suit the violin and piano ensemble.

Suite d’apres des themes, fragments et morceaux de Giambatista Pergolesi (to give its original French

title) is an earlier attempt by Stravinsky to adapt material for violin and piano. Some five years before

Stravinsky was introduced to Dushkin, he collaborated with Polish violinist Paul Kochanski. It is

perhaps a little more ‘showy’ than the pieces produced from the Dushkin collaboration.

Pulcinella is regarded as the first work of Stravinsky’s neoclassical period. Older music is re-written

with the interjection of modern rhythms, cadences and harmonies.

Max Davies

Max Charles Davies & Chris Nash Manhattan Circus (2017) for piano and Manhattan computer

software

Collaboration is an interesting endeavour! Particularly when it involves examining and subsequently

articulating aspects of one’s compositional process that can then be adapted in to computer code and

then realised by software.

This work is very much an experiment to explore the potential of a computer programme and an

instrumentalist playing together in ensemble. As with much of my recent work, including Tiny

Symphony and The Way of Things, the pitch material is derived from the circumstances surrounding

the piece. In this case, the central pitches are E – A – D – B, which is all the translatable pitch material

from the word MANHATTAN. I then used several algorithms of my own making to proliferate both the

pitch and rhythmic material according to specifically designed rules. The harmonic material is, again as

with much of my recent work, based on triads with added sevenths. The structure is pre-chosen and

fixed.

Once this ‘road map’ was in place – the chord sequence generated following specific rules related to

the pitch and rhythmic material, and within a fixed structure of four contrasting sections – and

translated into code within the Manhattan framework, it was then possible to manipulate and, where

appropriate, randomise various musical parameters. This results in similar but never identical versions

between performances.

The purpose of such an experiment, for me, was to explore the complementary differences in

capability and execution between humans and technology, rather than mimicry.

Max Davies

Arvo Pärt Passacaglia (2003) for violin and piano

This short work is perhaps better known in its 2007 version for one or two violins, string orchestra and

vibraphone ad lib. This afternoon the original version will be performed, first performed by the semi-

finalists at the Hanover International Violin Competition in 2003.

The work is grounded in a regular pulse that is articulated in different ways by both instruments, and

twice breaking into a distinctive ‘oom-cha’ pattern. The repeating harmonic structure is explored in

seemingly ever increasing technical demand by the violin before a significant pause leads back to the

soft ticking of the opening, before the very enigmatic final violin material.

Max Davies