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Work


Darkness and Light

for orchestra

Year:  1995   ·  Duration:  5m
Instrumentation:  3333; 3131; 4 perc.; hp; strings (20 10 8 6) | (3 sus. cym., glock., maracas, rain stick, tub. bell, 3 tam tams, 3 triangles, 3 large wood drums, 5 wood blocks, glass chimes, bamboo chimes, nipple gong, timp., metal chimes, 4 cowbells, snare drum, rain stick, bass drum, 5 toms, 2 timbales, 4 temple blocks, referee's whistle, rain stick)

Year:  1995
Duration:  5m
Instrumentation  3333; 3131; 4 perc.; hp; st...

Dorothy Ker
Composer

Composer:   Dorothy Ker

Films, Audio & Samples

Sample Score

Sample: Page 1-5.

See details ➔

Borrow/Hire:

To borrow items or hire parts please email SOUNZ directly at info@sounz.org.nz.

About

This work employs the device of a passacaglia, ie a recurring harmonic sequence, in this case linked to a talea - a rhythmic ostinato - of expanding and contracting durations and dynamics. The phasing of chord sequence and talea, their being different in length, results in an 'elliptical' profile of the sequence that draws focus to a different part of it each time it comes around. As it passes it draws in fragments of its transformed self, as well as other cyclic events, giving a continually renewed range of contrasting colours from the the orchestra, the predominant opposition being, as the title suggests between 'dark' and 'light' timbres: the process of the work in broad terms is a transformation from the one state to the other. The work was inspired by the New Zealand painter Colin McCahon's 'Northland Panels'.


Performance history

28 Nov 1998: Performed in a rehearsed reading by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei as part of the NZSO-SOUNZ Readings