Qi Colour from Hidden Resonances
for piano (2010); duration: 6’15”; publisher: Wirripang
score Wirripang Pty Ltd
inspiration
program note
This piece was written for my friend and University of Western Sydney colleague, Diana Blom, for her China-Australia exchange project. The work was inspired by the Chinese literati philosophy where subtle hidden sounds of yun sit alongside more robust qi energy. Hidden half timbres from rubber-stopped and finger-dampened strings, as well as silently undampened strings as resonators for attack dyad resonances gradually build to and decay from juxtaposed colour blocks of sound strewn across wide resonances as a type of qi inspired energy. Chinese modes in joyous linear bursts in the treble register heighten the exuberance. The wild juxtapositions draw on the free improvisation of MMW (Medeski, Martin and Wood) as much as Chinese literati philosophy. The work closes with a return to the hidden resonances, but, with high melodic modal touches imitative of birds awakening the bush at the base of the Blue Mountains on my morning run.
performance history
21 November, 2011, Antonietta Loffredo (piano), the Associazione Carducci, Italy
25 August, 2011, Antonietta Loffredo (piano), Art of Sound Performance Space, Music Kingswood Campus, University of Western Sydney
23 August 2011, Antonietta Loffredo (piano), Shadows and Silhouettes: New Piano Compositions Celebrating a Chinese-Western Confluence, University of Wollongong, Faculty of Creative Arts, Gleniffer Brae Manor House, Wollongong
18 August, 2011, Antonietta Loffredo (piano), Theme & Variations, 451 Willoughby Rd., Willoughby, Sydney
27 July 2010, Diana Blom (piano), International Society for Music Education Conference, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, China
comments
“…while a few have a achieved a genuine and deep understanding.
Two pieces stand out immediately and at first listening. Bruce Crossman’s Qi Colour From Hidden Resonances (2010) combines some attention-grabbing sounds and textures with a jazz-influenced sense of harmony and motivic development…
The Italian pianist, Antonietta Loffredo, plays rather well…she understandably responds with greater pianistic imagination to the more musically interesting works (the Crossman and Schweizer pieces are especially good).”
The Music Trust: Reviews (online), Noble, Alistair. “Shadows and Silhouettes: new piano compositions celebrating a Chinese-Western confluence,” Dec 1, 2014
recording
See album Shadows and Silhouettes, Wirripang 2010; Spotify 2015
Bruce Crossman 