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THE BEAST OF MANY COLORS There are many composers who have published monographic CDs. In most cases they are already deceased or they have to be immensely famous before this honor is bestowed on them. I am neither dead nor well known, and yet I am very fortunate to have met the great German maestro Detlev Bork, who devoted many years of his precious life to the performance and subsequent recording of my music, which is now being released on this CD. I will forever be grateful to Detlev for his determination, patience, artistry and the poetry in his soul in bringing this music to you. The music heard here reflects my entire life as a composer, from the early 1980s (Partita No. 1) to this day (The Study of pi), altogether more than 40 years. When Detlev and I recorded these pieces in the summer of 2018, it was as if 40 years of work were compressed into a precious diamond of time, merging the mistakes of my youth and the achievements of my maturity, and where I watch, enjoy and also could endure. I really wish all composers who have passed away could have had this wonderful yet utterly terrifying experience! The Partita No. 1 reflects many of my early influences, from Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco to Igor Stravinsky to Claude Debussy. It is a youthful, optimistic work. The Partita No. 1 was premiered by Australian virtuoso Craig Ogden. This recording with Detlev is the first recording. The Partita No. 2, also from the 1980s, is a more serious work that took me about seven years, a truly agonizing birth. Again there are influences, more modern and edgy, but now I feel like I'm embracing these ideas and expressing more of my view of the world. The 3rd movement contains multiphonics (I claim to have been the first to make this discovery, at least in this way), the sounding of an overtone simultaneously with the tone produced by the open string, which in this case produces the interval of a fifth on one string . This is accomplished by striking the 6th string at the 7th fret with your right index finger. The open E and the overtone H sound at the same time. Strange but true! When I was visiting London in 1984, the Armenian composer Gilbert Biberian kindly invited me to spend an afternoon listening to and discussing some of my compositions. He was indeed generous and opened my eyes to the different possibilities that composition can offer, and he was kind enough to provide me with an extensive list of pointers that I truly devoured. When I return to Australia I will have it Four Abbreviations completed. I regret to say that Gilbert wasn't as impressed with these tracks as I had hoped (perhaps I hadn't followed the possibilities he had considered), but these tracks are some of my favorites from the period and they appear here on CD for the first time. A much more ambitious work from the 1980s is The Beast of Many Colors. It is much more extensive, and the tonal possibilities of the guitar are also explored and expanded, true to Segovia's statement »The guitar is a small orchestra«. The piece was originally called Collage, a pretentious name from the 1980s that never really fitted. Speaking of the guitar world, Detlev once said to me that I was "a sore thumb," which was incredibly flattering, but also an idea I immediately loved, and that's how the title of this piece came about. For this first recording I completely revised the piece and dedicated it to Detlev Bork. The Aigburth Variations was written in 1997 in my uncle George's dining room in Liverpool in the north of England. Before emigrating to Australia, my parents Frank and Margaret lived in the Liverpool suburb of Aigburth and it seemed appropriate to dedicate this romantic play to them. The Variations on a Theme by Benjamin Britten were written at the request of Detlev Bork in 2013 for his project to celebrate the 100th birthday of this most wonderful of English composers. I had no doubt which Benjamin Britten play would inspire me: his String Quartet No. 1, and the subject of my work is the extraordinary Andante Sostenuto of the first movement. Detlev played the premiere on November 9, 2013 in Heidelberg. This is the first recording. And finally became The Study of pi written in 2016. The thumb of the right hand is included in the fingering of guitarists p and the index finger with i designated. This study focuses on the rapid alternation of these two fingers. As a result, the piece is quite unique in that it focuses on a single musical line rather than the chordal or contrapuntal style normally associated with classical guitar. It provides such a fascinating look at the details that fascinate classical guitarists and composers. One of the main features of The Study of pi are the many modes (scales) it contains. At the time of writing I had no idea or real interest in the exact names for these scales. I was searching for this composition with my ear and my heart. Later, a dear friend and expert on the subject, musicologist Dr. Dale Harris, each of the scales, and the score was subsequently published, including all these names, by Bergmann Edition (Denmark). Some of the modes are well known, but Hungarian Minor mode, Enigmatic mode and the Octatonic Half-Whole mode show the musicologists' obsession with detail that neither guitarists nor composers could ever have dreamed of. Roland Chadwick program:
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