Osbon, David (2005) Still waiting for the revolution ... (Piano trio). Score. (Unpublished)

Abstract

'Still Waiting for the Revolution…' is a piano trio in four movements that investigates both the practice of chamber music performance, and the re-articulation of melodic fragments through all 12 chromatic tones. The chamber music canon has created a number of cultural expectations amongst performers and audiences. The fourth movement of 'Still Waiting for the Revolution…'requires the performers to shout while playing. These vocalisations are composed into the body of the music and fit into the rhythmic plan of the piece. They are deliberately placed in the final movement of an 18 minute work to create a powerful effect on listeners who will be experiencing the music in a ‘traditional’ environment. The social and musical co-ordination plus the cultural expectation in chamber music practice is investigated in Davidson and Good (2002) through the observation of string quartet rehearsal and performance. This piano trio is an applied method of challenging the socio-cultural expectations of both performers and audiences. Added techniques, e.g. extensive use of multi-stopped glissando across strings between either fixed or indeterminate pitches, are used at points of dynamic interest and to aid formal progression. The slow movement takes the traditional American melody Shenandoah and extracts its key thematic identifiers. These are then re-presented in a dense chromatic melody. The compositional challenge was to present the material as if heard from a number of different perspectives without masking its characteristic motivic (usually intervallic) quality. The use of added techniques in the string writing is a development of techniques addressed in String Quartet No 2 (1994), …on both sides (1997) for double string orchestra and in moto perpetuo (1998) for symphony orchestra.

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