Echoic Memories
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Commissioned by the concert series New Music in the South-West
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I - Preface
II - Jumbled Photographs III - Epilogue |
Extract from programme note
This piece contemplates musical memory. Ideas for the music were originally sparked by a concert of duets given by György and Márta Kurtág whose intimate performance hinted at a relationship experienced in and through music - where musical memories are inextricably bound up with a life spent together. 'Echoic Memory' is the cognitive process of sounds / music triggering specific memories. Usually these memories are not an accurate narrative but sensorial snapshots loaded with emotion (and often nostalgia), much like Proust's sniff of madeleine dipped in tea. In a nod to instances of my own echoic memories tiny snippets of music by Bach, Britten, Kurtag and Webern forms the basis of much of the musical material.
This piece contemplates musical memory. Ideas for the music were originally sparked by a concert of duets given by György and Márta Kurtág whose intimate performance hinted at a relationship experienced in and through music - where musical memories are inextricably bound up with a life spent together. 'Echoic Memory' is the cognitive process of sounds / music triggering specific memories. Usually these memories are not an accurate narrative but sensorial snapshots loaded with emotion (and often nostalgia), much like Proust's sniff of madeleine dipped in tea. In a nod to instances of my own echoic memories tiny snippets of music by Bach, Britten, Kurtag and Webern forms the basis of much of the musical material.
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