Sheet Music: ScoreGentleness-suddenness : for mezzo-soprano, violin, percussion and piano / Bruce Crossman.by Bruce Crossman (2012)
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Product details
Gentleness-Suddenness: is a meditation on love and creativity inspired by and a fusion of texts drawn from the Chinese Opera tradition of Kunqu, specifically the Peony Pavilion, and Judaic-Christian biblical texts from Genesis, Psalms, Song of Songs and Revelation. The work is structured in two parts concerned with elemental themes. The first part, Water and Fire, is structured in one arc beginning and ending in silence with cathartic outpouring at the centre: the central static underpinning of Filipino gong music structure is at its heart. This movement explores a fusion of a contemporary avant-garde harmonic language with Southeast and East Asian modal sounds, Jingju and Cantonese Opera rhythmic movement, Jingju melodic shape and Cantonese vocal line inflections with musical gestures inspired by calligraphical painting. The second part, Spirit, is also structured in one arc. Beginning in stillness, the music builds to frenetic and raucous movement at the center, before subsiding back to stillness. Quiet understated moments permeated by fragments of Kunqu melody with Shang-tia mode-based interval-colour sonorities flank the center section; their resonances of interval-colour with vibraphone and Japanese Temple bowl resonances providing suggestions of the spiritual, creative and erotic stillness of "zhe yi sha tian" (this brief moment).
Published by: Australian Music Centre — 1 facsimile score (54p. -- B4 (portrait))
Difficulty: Advanced — Advanced — Complex rhythmic detail and changing colour nuances
Duration: 40 mins
1. Water and fire -- 2. Spirit
First performance by Lotte Latukefu, James Cuddeford, Claire Edwardes, Michael Kieran Harvey at Gentleness-Suddenness (Campbelltown Arts Centre) on 29 Jun 2013
Includes program notes, biographical notes on the composer, and performance directions.
The composer notes the following influences/genres/styles associated with this work:
Chinese Opera (Kunqu, Cantonese Opera, Jingju), Filipino kulintang; Peony Pavilion and Judaic-Christian biblical texts from Genesis, Psalms, Song of Songs and Revelation; intercultural Asian-Pacific.
Typeset edition.
ISMN: 979-0-720130-86-6
Related products
This work is also available in the following products:
DVD: Gentleness-suddenness / Bruce Crossman, composer/artistic director.
CD: Living colours : Pacific sounds & spirit / Bruce Crossman.
CD: Celebrating twenty years / Melbourne Composers' League.
- Browse other works for Mezzo-Soprano with chamber ensemble
- Browse other works by Bruce Crossman
Analysis & Media
- Resonate Article: Living colours - from Chinese opera to an Australian music theatre work
- PDF: Australian Living Colours: Chinese Opera and an Asian-Pacific Aesthetic
by Bruce Crossman
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